Plants 40--150 cm tall, usually deciduous in winter. Roots fleshy, with globose-ellipsoid, swollen, tuberous part near tip; stolons sometimes to 30 cm. Leaves linear, 50--90 × 1--2.8 cm, apex acute. Scape erect, hollow; sterile bracts present. Helicoidal cymes double, 2--5(--10)-flowered; bracts scalelike or lanceolate. Pedicel ca. 5 mm. Flowers unscented, strictly day opening, opening in morning and closing in evening of same day. Perianth single, occasionally double (stamens petaloid), orange to reddish orange; tube 2--4 cm; segments spreading, with a purple or reddish orange patch, 5--12 × 1--3 cm, margin sometimes crinkly-undulate, inner segments wider than outer ones. Filaments 4--5 cm; anthers purplish black, 7--8 mm. Capsule ellipsoid, 2--2.5 × 1.2--1.5 cm. Fl. Jun--Nov. 2 n = 22, 33.

Four varieties may be recognized in China. The status of Hemerocallis fulva var. oppositibracteata H. Kong & Ching J. Wang (Guihaia 16: 303. 1996), described from Gansu, is uncertain. It supposedly differs in having narrower leaves 5--8 mm wide, subopposite sterile bracts, narrower perianth segments (outer ones 0.6--1 cm wide), and obovoid capsules.

Forests, thickets, grasslands, streamsides; 300--2500 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [India, Japan, Korea, Russia].