Medium robust herbs up to 40 cm tall. Corm subglobose, 4–5.5≈1.5–3.7 cm, orange inside, crowned by black fibrous remnants of former leaves. Leaves dark green, drying red-brown, with sheathing basal part, forming a short pseudostem, erect, coriaceaous, lanceolate, ± flat, eventually conduplicate, 14–40≈1–2.2 cm, with white hairs on margins and midrib abiaxially, otherwise glabrous on both surfaces or with sparse indumentum also on the lamina; hairs tufted, 3–9(–12)-armed, up to 5 mm long; veins 13–45, unequal. Inflorescences 2–7, with scapes 11.5–30 cm long, 1.5–3 mm wide. Flowers 4–10, in a spiciform arrangement; pedicels 2–8 mm long (upper flowers usually sessile); bracts 10–20 mm long, subulate to lanceolate; tepals 7–11≈3–5(–6.5) mm, broadly elliptic, inner slightly wider than the outer; stamens unequal, outer 3.5–5.2 with filaments 1.7–2.2 mm long, inner 3.5–5 mm long with filaments 1.4–1.7 mm long, filaments subulate, anthers 2.5–4.8 mm long with thecae fused; ovary obconical 3–4≈2–3 mm, style 0.8–2.5 mm long, stigma 1.2–2.5 mm long with 3 free or fused erect lobes. Capsule cylindric-turbinate to clavate, 5–10≈4.5–5 mm, circumscissile. Seeds black and glossy, 1.5–1.6≈1.2–1.4 mm, ovoid; testa most often papillate (as in Fig. 1: 2 & 5, p. 4), cuticle smooth.
