Perennial herb, suckering to form dense groups of plants, acaulescent or with a short stem. Leaves in a dense rosette, erect, or spreading in shady habitats; lamina 30–60 cm long, 8–15 cm wide at the base, ovate-lanceolate, greyish-green to dark olive-green, with a bloom, often flushed with pinkish-red, obscurely lineate and occasionally sparsely spotted especially in young plants; margin cartilaginous with deltoid minutely brown-tipped teeth 1–3 mm long and 5–10(15) mm apart. Inflorescence erect to oblique, 0.5–1.5 m high; peduncle many-branched from low down, the lower branches often rebranching; branches spreading and usually curving upwards, subtended by deltoid scarious bracts 1–2.5 × 1 cm, with several small sterile bracts below each raceme. Racemes 5–15(20) × 8 cm, broadly cylindric, occasionally subcapitate, very laxly flowered or occasionally ± densely flowered; bracts 3–6 × 3.5 mm, ovate-acuminate, scarious; pedicels 15–25(30) mm long, spreading. Perianth bright coral-pink or sometimes pale orange to yellow, 30–40 mm long, 7–9 mm in diameter across the ovary, narrowed above then curved and widening toward the mouth, tapering at the base, cylindric-trigonous; outer segments free for ± one-quarter, with tips slightly spreading. Stamens and stigma slightly exserted. Capsule stipitate for 1–2 mm, c. 20 × 10 mm, ovoid, greyish-brown. Seeds c. 3 × 6.5 mm, blackish-brown with broad, pale buff, speckled wings.