plant stemless or very short caulescent, variable in size, flowering ca 6 cm high, propagating by basal stolons. leaves numerous, not narrowed between sheath and blade, suberect to spreading and arched-recurving, usually forming a dense, flat rosette at anthesis; sheath small but distinct, broadly elliptic to suborbiculate, 1–2 cm long, ca 1.4–2 cm wide, very densely spinulose toward apex, lustrous, glabrous; blade very narrowly triangular, filiform-acuminate, 7–25 cm long, ca 1 cm wide at base, flat, thin in texture, green, lustrous and glabrous adaxially, finely but distinctly nerved and very densely white lepidote abaxially, the trichomes becoming pale castaneous when dry, margins densely serrulate, spines ca 0.5 mm long, slightly undulate in drying. inflorescence few- to many flowered, sessile, pseudosimple to inconspicuously once-branched; primary bracts foliaceous; fascicles 2-flowered; floral bracts narrowly triangular-lanceolate, acuminate, apex curved, 6–15 mm long, 3–4 mm wide, lepidote at apex or glabrescent, membranaceous, about equaling 2/3 of the length of sepals, entire or denticulate toward apex, sharply carinate. flowers 32–45 mm long; sepals (7-) 11–13 mm long, ca 3 mm wide, suboblong, symmetric, apex subacute, apiculate, and slightly recurved when dry, subcuculate, unequally connate for 2–5 mm, entire, inconspicuously lepidote to glabrescent, carinate (mainly the adaxial ones), soon drying; petals (27-) 35–40 mm long, ca 10 mm wide near the apex, ca 2 mm wide at base, orange-yellow, spathulate, apex obtuse, slightly exceeding the stamens, free, erect at anthesis, bearing 2 linear-lanceolate appendages at base of 5–7 mm in length, apex acuminate or irregularly bidentate, about 1/2 adnate to the petal. stamens included; filament the epipetalous ones adnate to the petals for ca 2 mm, the episepalous free; anther ca 2 mm long, fixed near 1/3 of their length about the base. pistil: ovary ca 5 mm long, ca 4 mm wide, broadly obovate, subcomplanate, white, glabrous; epigynous tube shallow; placentae central; ovules many, obtuse.Edited from : Leme 1995g. A New Identity for a Mysterious Species .