Tufted erect perennial 0.7–1 m. tall from a thick tap root and underground stem; stems glabrous, with 4 reddish purple longitudinal lines or with minute hairs in lines just below the stipule-sheaths.. Leaves apparently held erect, giving a strict look to the plant; blades linear-lanceolate or linear to linear-oblanceolate, 6–16 cm. long, 2.6–7 mm. wide, acute at the apex, very gradually attenuate at the base, glabrous save for the scabrid margins, densely minutely speckled; true petiole absent but tenuous part of blade up to 3 cm. long; stipule-sheath cylindrical, 1–1.2 cm. long, with 4 setae 4–6 mm. long.. Flowers in clusters at the nodes, the apical 4 or 5 clusters running together to form a congested cone-like inflorescence, the lower nodes separated by internodes 0.5–9 cm. long; leafy bracts 2–7 cm. long; stipuliform bracteoles with fimbriae 8 mm. long, ciliate.. Calyx-tube narrowly obconic, 6 mm. long; lobes 2, linear-triangular, 7.5 mm. long, shortly ciliate.. Corolla white; tube 6–8 mm. long, densely hairy at the throat; lobes triangular-lanceolate, 1–1.1 cm. long, 3–4 mm. wide.. Filaments exserted 9 mm.. Style exserted 1.2 mm., minutely roughened; stigma slightly clavate, 1 mm. wide.. Capsule ellipsoid, straw-coloured, streaked with reddish brown, 5 mm. long, minutely transversely wrinkled, crowned with the persistent calyx-lobes.. Seeds pale chestnut-brown, 3.8–4 mm. long, 1.8 mm. wide, 0.8 mm. thick with a marked ventral groove; a trace of an aril appears as a white patch between the groove and is just visible at the end of the seed from above.. Fig. 49/8, p. 340.
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