Perennial herb, solitary, or suckering to form small groups of plants, acaulescent or with a very short stem. Leaves in a compact rosette, stiffly erect; lamina up to 90 cm long, 12–15 cm wide toward the base, lanceolate-attenuate, dark greyish-green, tinged reddish in dry conditions, slightly rough on the surface, without spots; margin with pungent deltoid brown-tipped teeth 1–2 mm long and 4–6 mm apart. Inflorescences 1–3, erect, 1.25–1.75 m high; peduncle 4–8-branched; branches curving upwards, subtended by scarious deltoid bracts c. 20 × 20 mm, with a few sterile bracts below each raceme. Racemes 25–50 × 7 cm, narrowly cylindric-acuminate, very densely flowered, the buds covered by the bracts; bracts 17–22 × 12 mm, broadly ovate-acuminate, scarious, many-nerved; pedicels c. 20 mm long, elongating to 28 mm in fruit. Perianth bright scarlet, green-tipped in bud, sometimes opening to yellow but the base remains red, 30–45 mm long, 9–10 mm in diameter across the ovary, cylindric-trigonous; outer segments free to the base, tips scarcely spreading. Stamens and stigma exserted c. 3 mm. Capsule c. 25 × 13 mm, oblong-ovoid, dark yellowish-brown. Seeds 4 × 5 mm, black, with narrow speckled wings.
