Plants solitary or cespitose, forming colonies 1.3–2 m diam., acaulescent, erect or semierect, up to 0.2 m; rosettes usually small, symmetrical. Leaf blade yellowish green, plano-convex or plano-keeled, occasionally falcate, widest near middle, 25–45 (–50) × 0.6–0.9 cm, rigid, smooth adaxially and abaxially, margins entire, recurved, filiferous, whitish, apex spinose, spine acicular, to 3.2 mm. Inflorescences racemose, arising within or just beyond rosettes, 2.5–4.5(–8.5) dm; bracts erect, purplish; peduncle scapelike, 0.1–0.2 m, less than 2.5 cm diam. Flowers pendent; perianth campanulate; tepals distinct, ovate to obovate or elliptic, 5–6.5 × 1.5–3.2 cm; filaments to 2 cm, finely pubescent; pistil green, 2.5–3.2 × 0.8 cm; style white, 7 mm; stigmas lobed. Fruits erect, capsular, dehiscent, oblong-cylindric, not usually constricted, 5 × 2.5 cm, dehiscence septicidal. Seeds dull black, thin, 6–10 mm.
Usually found in sandy soil, on sandstone ridges or infrequently in cinder flats, growing in mixed warm desert shrub, grasslands and pinyon-juniper and ponderosa pine woodlands ; at elevations from 1,300-2,500 metres.
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