Plants usually bulbose; bulb coat, when present, membranous. Stems slender or coarse, stout, branching or not, strongly flexuous, 3-10 dm. Leaves: basal withering, 1-2 dm; blade linear. Inflorescences subumbellate, 1-6-flowered; bracts 4-8 cm, bases dilated. Flowers erect; perianth open, cup-shaped; sepals usually with red-brown blotch at base, lanceolate-ovate, 2-4 cm, apex acute; petals lemon to golden yellow, with transverse line distal to gland, broadly cuneate to obovate, 3-5 cm; glands round, deeply depressed, densely covered with short hairs with branching, coralline tips, surrounded by conspicuously fringed membrane and club-shaped hairs; filaments ca. 10 mm; anthers purplish brown, oblong, 4-10 mm. Capsules erect, lanceoloid-linear, angled, 6-9 cm, apex acuminate. Seeds light yellow, translucent, flat. 2n = 16.