plant caulescent. leaves uniform, fasciculate, to 6 dm long, entire; sheath narrowly ovate, 6–7 cm long, green, soon glabrous; petioles ca 1.5 mm wide; blade linear-lanceolate, attenuate, 23 mm wide, glabrous above, covered beneath with pale appressed scales. inflorescence: peduncle erect, slender, almost wholly covered by the leaf -sheaths; peduncle bracts subfoliaceous, greatly exceeding the inflorescence; fertile part simple, few-flowered, shorter than the petiole; floral bracts narrowly ovate, filiform-attenuate, the lower ones much exceeding the remainder of the inflorescence. flowers: pedicel slender, terete, 8 mm long, lepidote. flowers suberect; sepals lance-oblong, 13 mm long, inflated at base, subacute and mucronate at apex, lepidote, the adaxial ones carinate; petals 5 cm long, arching, yellow, naked. stamens included. pistil: ovary 4/5 superior; ovules ecaudate.Edited from : Phytologia 52: 51, 59. (1982)