Plant acaulescent, 10-30 cm tall, very variable in size and color, often aggregated, the sheaths greatly inflated, forming a small, compact ovoid pseudobulb. Leaves 8-15, the outer ones often reduced and sheath-like, 8-30 cm long, mostly exceeding the inflorescence; sheaths ample, abruptly constricted into the blades, stiff-coriaceous, orbicular, greatly inflated, 1.5-3.5 cm wide, densely appressed-lepidote toward the apex, brownish to silvery green at the apex, often purple-or red-banded at the margins; blades often spreading or reflexed, mostly flexuous, fleshy coriaceous, involute-subulate, 10-25 cm long, 1-5 mm in diam., attenuate, pungent, minutely appressed-lepidote, pale to very dark lustrous-green. Inflorescence simple or subdigitately compound of 2-5 polystichously arranged spikes, 7.5-23 cm long, subdense, orange-red or green; scape erect, 5-15 cm long, densely covered by bracts; scape-bracts densely involute-subulate, with foliaceous blades, exceeding the inflorescence, the upper ones often orange-red in part; axis short, but exposed between the spreading bracts, angled, lepidote, often pale-rose; primary bracts as the upper scape bracts, but the upper ones more ovate and acuminate, clasping the spikes, the lower ones often exceeding the spikes with the foliaceous blades; spikes short pedunculate (ca. 0.5 cm), suberect or spreading, lanceolate, complanate, 2.5-5 x 0.7-1 cm, acute, densely and distichously 3-6-flowered, often with one sterile bract at the base and apex; rachis slightly exposed by the narrow bracts, nearly straight, sharply angled (dry), lepidote; floral bracts erect, somewhat incurved at the apex, imbricate, subcoriaceous, ovate, 1.1-1.9 cm long, 2-4 times as long as the internodes, much exceeding the sepals, acute, (obscurely) carinate, densely lepidote. Flowers tubular-erect, contiguous, sessile; receptacle obconic, ca. 1 mm long; sepals thin and stiff, with veined surface (only when dry), oblong, 1-1.2 cm long, with broad veinless margins, obtuse and obscurely apiculate, posteriorly more or less connate (1/4) and bluntly angled at the base, glabrous; petals linear, to 4 cm long, acute, blue-violet or rarely white; stamens much exceeding the petals, the longest (3) about equaling or shorter than the pistil, filaments straight(?), flat, the exceeding part dilated and terete, anthers dorsifixed (at 1/3), 2.5 mm long; ovary ovoid, 4 mm long, tapering into the slender style. Capsules slenderly cylindric, to 4 cm long, more than twice as long as the floral bracts, abruptly short-beaked.
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Plants usually in dense masses, 7-22 cm. high. Leaves 8-15, often exceeding the inflorescence, covered with fine appressed cinereous scales; sheaths orbicular, abruptly contracted into the blades, much inflated, 2-5 cm. long, forming a dense ovoid pseudobulb, green or greenish white, often with a narrow red or purple margin; blades involute-subulate, acuminate, contorted, spreading, to 3 dm. long, 2-7 mm. thick. Scape erect. Scape-bracts with elongate foliaceous blades exceed-ing the inflorescence, the upper ones often red. Inflorescence simple or subdigitate from a few spikes, red or green. Primary bracts ovate, acute, much shorter than the spikes but their foliaceous blades sometimes exceeding them. Spikes spreading, lanceolate, acute, complanate, 2-5 cm. long, 2-to 8-flowered. Rhachis slender, lepidote. Floral bracts erect, imbricate, ovate, acute, 15 mm. long, exceeding the sepals, carinate, subchartaceous, lepidote. Flowers sessile. Sepals oblong, apiculate, 13 mm. long, the posterior ones somewhat connate. Petals 3-4 cm. long, blue or violet. Stamens exserted. Capsule cylindric, to 4 cm. long.
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