Perennial herb, (15) 50–120 cm., taller forms much-branched with the lower branches increasingly widely divaricate; stem and branches more or less densely furnished with whitish to yellowish spreading to upwardly ascending hairs, quadrangular, the older parts more or less glabrescent and terete. Leaves usually obovate and rounded-apiculate, sometimes elliptic and subacute, broadly tapering below, those of the main stem and branches 1.2–8 × 0.6–3.5 cm., moderately appressed-pilose on both surfaces with hairs usually of varying lengths, darker green above and paler beneath. Inflorescences terminal on the stem and branches, sometimes more or less clustered at the apex of the stem by branch reduction, pinkish, conical when young but finally cylindrical, 3–10 × 1.25–1.5 cm. long, very dense, on a 0.5–4 cm. densely tomentose peduncle. Bracts lanceolate-ovate, 4–6 mm. long, membranous with an obscurely to distinctly green centre, more or less densely pilose centrally, diminishing to glabrous at the margins, tapering to the short acute arista formed by the excurrent midrib. Bracteoles similar or slightly narrower, 3–5 mm. long, more densely pilose, more longly (c. 0.5–1 mm.) aristate. Flowers truncate at the base and indurate, attached to the inflorescence axis by a white, annular callus. Tepals narrowly lanceolate; outer 2 greenish and more or less densely pilose centrally, 5–8 mm. long, with 3 (5) white nerves, the 1 (2) outer pairs much shorter than the midrib, which is excurrent in a short arista; inner 3 similar but slightly shorter and progressively somewhat narrower and less pilose, 3-nerved or the inner most occasionally with only uhe midrib showing; all usually slightly upwardly curving near the tip. Perianth and bracteoles falling together in fruit. Stamens 2.5–5 mm.; pseudostaminodes 1–1.5 mm., oblong to flabellate, fimbriate (or dentate only at the apex with the margins fimbriate), dorsal scale broader and fimbriate to subulate-dentate. Ovary obpyriform, c. 1.5 mm.; style slender, 2.75–4.25 mm. Utricle oblong-ovoid, c. 2 mm., the firm, flat apex with a transverse crest on each side of the style; seed c. 1.75 mm., oblong-ellipsoid, brown, shining.
