Plants 35--90 cm tall. Rhizome 0.8--2 cm thick. Leaves 7--12; petiole usually very short; leaf blade lanceolate or narrowly so, 4--15 × 1--3(--5) cm, base cuneate. Outer tepals 4 or 5, green, lanceolate or narrowly so, 3--5 × (0.7--)1.4--1.6 cm; inner ones absent or narrowly linear and equaling or longer than outer ones. Stamens 8--10; filaments 4--5 mm; anthers 8--10 mm; free portion of connective 0.6--2.7 cm. Ovary green, ovoid-globose, 1-loculed, inconspicuously 5-ribbed. Style short; stigma lobes 4 or 5. Capsule ovoid-globose. Seeds black, 1/2 enveloped by red, succulent, crested aril. Fl. Apr--Jul, fr. Jul--Aug.

Forests, forest margins; 1400--3800 m. S Gansu, Guizhou, Sichuan, S Xizang, NW Yunnan [Bhutan, Myanmar, Sikkim].