Plants 3--20 cm tall. Bulb 1.5--2.5 cm × 6--7 mm. Basal leaves (1 or)2, filiform, slightly shorter or longer than stem, ca. 1 mm wide; cauline leaves 2--4, linear or narrowly so, 1--3 cm × 1--3 mm. Inflorescence 1- or 2-flowered. Tepals white, violet veined, basally mottled with purple, obovate-oblong, 0.5--1.5 cm × 2--5 mm, usually with a small, nectariferous groove near base adaxially, apex obtuse-rounded. Stamens 1/2--3/5 as long as tepals; filaments glabrous. Ovary suboblong or narrowly ellipsoid, 3--4 × 1--1.5 mm. Style 3--4 mm; stigma indistinctly 3-lobed. Capsule subobovoid or subovoid, 3--7 mm, apex with persistent style. Seeds subdeltoid or crescent-shaped-deltoid, flat. Fl. Jun--Aug, fr. Aug--Oct.

Thickets, grassy slopes, alpine grasslands; 2400--5000 m. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Sikkim; Europe, North America].