Rhizome tuberous. Pseudostems dark purple, 1.5--2.4 m. Petiole purple spotted, deep purple at base, purple-red at margin, to 1 m, slender, margin narrow, open ca. 1.5 cm wide; leaf blade adaxially deep green, abaxially yellow-green, ovate-oblong, ca. 2 m × 50 cm, midvein pink striped, base obliquely asymmetric, apex obtuse. Inflorescence erect, ca. 40 × 2.5--4 cm; rachis brown villous. Bracts pink, lanceolate. Flowers 5 or 6 per bract, in 1 row. Compound tepal golden yellow, apex of outer lobes with a hooklike appendage; free tepal yellow, much shorter than compound tepal, membranous. Infructescence erect, often with 6--9 fruit clusters. Berries 5 or 6 per cluster, reddish, cylindric, slightly curved, ca. 7 × 2.5--3 cm, base attenuate, apex truncate. Seeds numerous, brownish, depressed, ca. 5 mm in diam., irregularly angled, tuberculate. 2 n = 22.

Shaded and moist ravine bottoms or semimarshlands; 1000--1300 m. SW Yunnan [Myanmar, Thailand].