Roots thickened, fleshy. Rhizome stout, sometimes clump-forming, often surrounded by a dense collar of persistent fibers from disintegrated leaf bases. Leaves usually rather few (5--10) and laxly tufted, sometimes more numerous and dense, linear-lanceolate to linear, 3--25 cm × 1--10 mm. Scape 3.5--40 cm. Raceme 1--20 cm, densely to laxly 4--40-flowered, rachis pubescent. Flowers distinctly pedicellate; pedicel 1--12 mm, pubescent; bract and bracteole borne at or near apex of pedicel; bract lanceolate to narrowly linear-lanceolate, 3--20 mm, 1--4 × flower length, glabrous, apex obtuse to rounded. Perianth dark red, red, pink, orange, yellow, greenish yellow, or white, 3.5--6 mm, glabrous; tube campanulate; lobes usually recurved, sometimes erect, oblong-ovate to lanceolate, 1.5--2.5 × 0.8--1.5 mm, 0.6--1 × tube length, apex obtuse to rounded. Capsule ovoid-ellipsoid or ovoid-conical, 4--6 × 2.5--4 mm, apex of valves gradually narrowed; style to 0.5 mm; stigma thickened. Fl. Apr--Aug, fr. Jun--Oct.

Two varieties may be recognized, although intermediate plants and mixed collections occur. In FRPS, they were distinguished, in addition to bract length, by having racemes laxly flowered (var. pauciflora) or densely flowered (var. khasiana). However, raceme density seems to indicate the developmental stage of the inflorescence (i.e., denser is younger) rather than correlate with bract length.

Mixed, coniferous, and broad-leaved forests, scrub, bamboo scrub, swamps, marshes, bogs, stream banks, wet flushes, damp meadows, grassy alpine slopes, open stony pastures, exposed ridges, river gravels, moraines, rocks; 1500--4900 m. Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Kashmir, N Myanmar, Nepal, Sikkim].