Rhizome creeping, short, 2--3 cm thick, stout. Leaves basal, tufted or spaced, petiolate, oblong-lanceolate, 40--90 × 4.5--7 cm, thickly papery, apex acuminate. Spike procumbent, 2.5--4.5 cm, 2--7-flowered; peduncle recurved, 0.5--2.5 cm, fleshy; bracts 2 or 3 per flower, brownish yellow, broadly deltoid-ovate, 4--12 × 5--12 mm, subleathery. Perianth purple, 1.2--1.5 × ca. 1.5 cm, fleshy; tube white adaxially, 5--7 mm; lobes broadly deltoid-ovate, 5--7 × 5--6 mm, apex acute. Filaments with very short free part; anthers suborbicular, ca. 1.5 mm in diam. Ovary spheroidal, ca. 1.5 mm in diam. Style ca. 7 mm; stigma peltate, slightly inflated, ca. 3 mm in diam. Fl. Nov--Dec.

Also see: QIAO Qin, Chang-Qin ZHANG & Richard Ian MILNE. 2010. Population genetics and breeding system of Tupistra pingbianensis (Liliaceae), a naturally rare plant endemic to SW China. J. Syst. Evol. 48(1): 47-57.

* Dense forests; ca. 1700 m. SE Yunnan (Pingbian Miao Zu Zizhixian).