Herbaceous perennial from a thick rhizome; flowering stems usually simple, sometimes branched, 20-50 cm. tall, and leafless.

Leaves basal, linear-lanceolate, 20-50 cm. long, 5-10 mm. broad, the tips long-pointed.

Flowers usually 2, sometimes 3 or 4, showy and pale to deep-blue, purple-lined, subtended by a pair of involucral leaves; pedicels stout, up to 6 cm. long; perianth parts fused into a tube at the base, the tube 5-8 mm. long; sepals 3, oblanceolate, 5-6 cm. long, spreading and bent back; petals 3, shorter and narrower than the sepals, erect; stamens 3, opposite the sepals; style branches 3, 20-25 mm. long, with 2 terminal lobes about as long; stigma broad and slightly notched; ovary inferior.

Found in moist, vernal swale at the mesa top.