Plants 5--15 cm tall. Bulb ovoid, 4--7 mm in diam.; tunic brownish yellow or pale gray, papery, distally with a collar of persistent leaf bases 1--5 cm, not surrounded by numerous roots; bulbels 1 to several, within tunic. Stem gray-white pubescent proximally. Leaves basal and cauline; basal leaf 1, filiform or narrowly linear, 8--20 cm × 1--1.5(--2) mm, margin involute; cauline leaves 1--3. Inflorescence (1 or)2- or 3(--5)-flowered, subcorymbose or racemose. Pedicel pubescent. Tepals pale yellow adaxially, greenish yellow abaxially, narrowly elliptic or narowly oblong, 0.9--1.5 cm × 2--4 mm. Stamens 6--10 mm; filaments much longer than anthers; anthers ca. 2 mm. Style slightly longer than ovary; stigma slightly 3-lobed. Capsule oblong, 3-angled, ca. 2/3 as long as persistent tepals. Seeds flat. Fl. and fr. Apr--May.

Deserts on hillsides, steppes; 400--1100 m. N Xinjiang [Kazakhstan].