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Description:
Plants (400–)600–1 600 mm high, with velvety catphylls. Corm depressed-globose, 30–40 mm diam.; tunics firm-papery to leathery, fragmenting irregularly but usually extending upward a short distance as coarse fibrous collar around base of stem. Stem erect and straight, often sparsely pubescent, unbranched. Leaves usually 7 or 8, mostly basal, sometimes forming pseudostem, reaching at least to base of spike or sometimes shortly exceeding it, imbricate and concealing lower 2/3 of stem, narrowly sword-shaped to nearly linear, 12–18(–24) mm wide, firm to rigid, main vein and margins strongly thickened, usually notably velvety between veins, uppermost leaf inserted in middle of stem, shorter. Spike straight and erect, weakly or fully 2-ranked, 7–15(26)-flowered; bracts green, firm-textured, attenuate, sometimes sparsely pubescent to velvery below, (27–)32–50(–62) mm long, inner slightly shorter, with margins united below and sheathing base of tube, forked into attenuate cusps 2–4 mm long. Flowers salmon to pale pink or mauve, lower 3 tepals paler in midline and with reddish to purple median streak in lower 1/2, tube red or purple in throat and sometimes on reverse, unscented; perianth tube narrow and curving outward, expanded slightly near apex, (28–)40–50(–55) mm long; tepals lanceolate-elliptic, margins undulate, upper 3 largest, (37–)45–60 mm long, dorsal 20–25(–30) mm wide, arching over stamens, upper laterals curving outward in distal 1/2 when fully open, lower 3 tepals united for 3–4 mm, laterals shorter than lower median, ± 13 mm wide, arching downward distally. Filaments 15–17(–20) mm long, exserted 6–10 mm from tube; anthers ± 11 mm long, reaching to ± middle of dorsal tepal, pale mauve; pollen cream. Style arching over stamens, dividing 2–4 mm beyond anther apices, branches 6–7 mm long. Capsules narrowly obovoid-oblong, 3-lobed above, truncate to retuse, 20–25 mm long. Seeds ovate, ± 6 × 4 mm, broadly and evenly winged. Flowering time: mostly February and March, occasionally in December or April to early May.
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