Perennial herb, solitary or suckering to form small groups of plants, acaulescent or with a stout stem to 20 cm tall clothed in dead leaf remains. Leaves in a dense rosette, spreading; lamina to c. 30 × 6–10 cm, ovate-lanceolate, usually withered and twisted in the apical c. 10 cm, dark greyish-green on the upper surface which is conspicuously marked with large elongated whitish spots often in transverse bands toward the base, pale milky-green on the lower surface and without spots but ± lineate and distinctly so near the margin; margin horny, reddish-brown, with pungent deltoid red-brown teeth c. 6 mm long, 8–15 mm apart. Inflorescences 1–3, erect, 0.75–2 m high; peduncle 6–12(15)-branched, the lower branches sometimes rebranched; branches curving widely upwards, subtended by scarious, many-nerved bracts to c. 2.5 cm long. Racemes 3–5 × 7 cm, capitate, flat-topped in bud, densely flowered, with a few flowers more widely spaced at the base; bracts 8–15 mm long, linear-lanceolate, scarious; pedicels 18–28 mm long. Perianth pale pink, with paler margins to the segments running to the base of the perianth, 25–30 mm long, 6–7 mm in diameter across the ovary, constricted just above, then widening and becoming slightly decurved toward the mouth, cylindric-trigonous; outer segments free for up to one-third, with scarcely spreading tips. Stamens and stigma scarcely exserted. Capsule and seeds not seen.
