A farinose plant (5-) 8-32 cm tall, with a short and stout rhizome emitting roots; base of rhizome sheathed in bud-scales, which are prominent, brownish-red and persistent. -.eaves 3.5-13.5 x 0.8-4 cm, elliptic-lanceolate to strap shaped, obtuse, denticulate, puberulous on the upper surface, with yellow farina on the under surface, sometimes puberulous on the nerves below (hairs white) in fruiting specimens; petiole broad sheathing. Scape solitary, or up to 4-5 in number, 4-30 cm long, stout, up to 40 cm in fruit, fistular, glabrous. Flowers in dense capitate heads, heteromorphic, mauve to pinkish-blue. Bracts 4-6 mm long, lanceolate, dilated at the base, margin minutely pubescent. Pedicel in fruit c. 1.5 mm long. Calyx 4-10 mm long, tubular-ovoid, ½ cleft into linear-lanceolate lobes, more or less chartaceous in fruit. Corolla tube slightly longer or up to twice as long as the calyx; limb up to 18 mm long; lobes 7-8 x 5-6 mm, throat light yellow, exannulate, Anthers 2.5 mm long, oblong, attached c. 2 mm below the throat (in pin-eyed flowers they are present just above and ovary). Ovary subglobose, c. 2.5 mm broad. Style c. 2 mm long (in pin-eyed flowers 6.5 mm). Capsule included, sub-globose to obovoid. Seeds c. 0.4 mm, angular, papillose.