Leaf 100–400 × 10–30 mm, very thick, fleshy, dark green, often glaucous, base green or purplish. Flower stem 200–1000 × 4–8 mm, 2–30-flowered. Sterile bracts 2 to 4, large, lowest bract leaf-like. Flowers 20–40 mm across, crowded, internally blue to dark metallic blue, mauve, lilac, pale purple or greenish blue with darker veins, externally greenish or brownish. Sepals and petals 8–20 × 4–10 mm, concave. Column 5–8 × 2–3.5 mm, cream, pale yellow, mauve or greenish; post-anther lobe not hooding anther, 4.5–5.5 × 2–3 mm, strap-like, pale brown with yellow apex, strongly incurved, prominently notched, irregularly toothed; column arms converging, 1.5–2.5 mm long, obliquely erect; hair-tufts toothbrush-like, moderately dense, white, hairs 1–1.5 mm long. Anther at base of column.
Locally common; found growing in open forest, shrubland and heathland, often on rocky slopes and ridges in hard clay or freely draining, gravelly soil.
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