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Leaves evenly spaced on the stem, sessile, pale to bright green, paler beneath, shiny, 3-11.2 × 0.35-2.8 cm, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate or ovate, semi-amplexicaul at the base sometimes auriculate, narrowing gradually or abruptly to an acute apex, occasionally cirrose at the tips, thin-textured, reticulately veined; veins sometimes scabrid or with minute prickles; lowermost leaves few, 1.5-3 cm long.
Peduncles 1.3-6 cm long, ascending, occasionally branched and then 2-flowered, sometimes scabrid or with minute prickles; bracts 1-26 × 0.5-5 mm, occasionally absent; pedicels up to 2.5 mm long, deflexed at fruiting, or sometimes peduncle pendent.
Stem leafy, single, simple or sometimes with 1–2 branches from below the middle, ± strongly longitudinally ridged; ridges glabrous, occasionally scabrid or with minute prickles; branches to 30 cm long.
Tepals white, pale to bright blue, or pale to deep mauve, sometimes streaked, 13-22 × 2.5-6.5 mm, elliptic, apiculate, 5-10-veined, ± free to the base, the inner narrower than the outer.
Anthers 6-12 × 0.75 mm, blue, dark mauve, purple or black, with yellow base and tips, free not connivent or adhering at the apex; pore terminal on the anther, ± circular.
Tubers 1–5, at the base of a slender vertical 5–15 cm long underground stem, 1.5-3 × 2.5-4 cm, ± ovoid with a ± tuberculate surface, white and fleshy within.
Capsule green, maturing to dark yellow, 10-20 mm in diameter, globose to oblong, 3-lobed, perianth segments not persistent.
Seeds 5 × 3 mm (measurements from East African specimens).
Style colourless, 8-14 mm long, filiform; stigma subulate.
Filament whitish, 1-2.75 mm long, triangular at the base.
Ovary semi-superior, c. 2 mm long, turbinate.
Erect slender perennial herb 18-88 cm tall.
