Perennial herb from a thick rhizome up to 6 cm long, 2.5 cm in diameter, with spreading fleshy yellowish roots 1.5–3 mm in diameter. Leaves in a basal rosette, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 30–150 cm long, 1–3.5 cm wide towards the base, 3-angled and channelled, the outer leaves reduced to membranous sheaths up to 5.5 cm long. Inflorescence 30–120(–305) cm high; peduncle 9–13 mm in diameter; raceme lax to dense, 7–40 cm long, 3.5–7 cm wide; fertile bracts ovate to cuspidate, (6–)9–15 mm long, 1–4 mm wide at the base, acute to acuminate or filiform at the apex, the keel extended often well beyond the margins; pedicels 2–4 mm long, up to 6 mm long in fruit. Flowers orange-red to yellow or a mixture, usually redder towards the apex of the raceme, pendent, often decurved; the perianth-tube 18–38 mm long, 3–6 mm wide at mouth, 3–5 mm wide around ovary, constricted above the ovary to 1.5–2.5 mm wide, the lobes 1–3 mm long, sometimes spreading; stamens included within the tube or slightly exserted, style exserted up to 8 mm in older flowers; filaments, style and stigma pale yellow, anthers dark brown with yellow pollen. Capsule ovoid to trigonous, 6–10 mm long, 5–8 mm wide, pointed at the apex from the remains of the style-base, transversely ridged; seed 3-angled, 2–4 mm long, 1.5–3 mm wide, black.
