Perennial herb, solitary or suckering to form small groups of plants, acaulescent or with a stout stem to 30 cm tall covered with dead leaf remains. Leaves in a compact rosette, spreading; lamina 20–40 × 6–12 cm, broadly lanceolate, usually dried and twisted in the apical 5–15 cm, dull greyish-green, with conspicuous elongated whitish spots arranged in irregular transverse bands on the upper surface, pale greyish-green and unspotted on the lower surface, lineate especially near the margins; margin horny and often brownish with pungent deltoid red-brown teeth 4–6 mm long and 10–15 mm apart; sap drying yellow. Inflorescences 1–3, erect, 1.25–1.75 m high; peduncle sturdy, 3–10-branched, the lowest branches sometimes rebranched; branches suberect, subtended by deltoid, scarious, many-nerved bracts 2–3 cm long. Racemes 8–20 × 7 cm, conical-cylindric, ± densely flowered; bracts 10–15 mm long, linear-lanceolate, scarious; pedicels 12–18 mm long. Perianth pale pink, with paler margins to the segments running to the base of the perianth, 25–32 mm long, 7–8 mm in diameter across the ovary, constricted just above the ovary, then widening and becoming slightly decurved towards the mouth, cylindric-trigonous; outer segments free for more than one-third, scarcely spreading at the tips. Stamens and stigma scarcely exserted. Capsule and seeds not seen.