A glabrous efarinose plant with a short and stout rhizome. Leaves 4-9(-13.5) x 1.2-2.4 cm (at maturity), elliptic, obtuse or obovate to oblanceolate, crenulate to denticulate. Scape (1.8-) 3.5-8 cm, up to 38 cm long in fruit, (3-) 4-10 (-12)-flowered. Largest bracts 8-11 mm long, lanceolate, glabrous, base saccate; pedicel 7-10 mm long, up to 12 mm in fruit. Flowers pink or rose, heteromorphic. Calyx 6-11 mm long, campanulate, glabrous, c.½cleft; lobes triangular-ovate, acute or subacuminate. Corolla tube 7-11 mm long, c. 1½ times the calyx length; limb 11-15 mm broad, lobes 4.5-7 x 4-6 mm, throat yellow, exannulate. Style 2-4 mm (in thrum-eyed flowers), 6.5 mm in pin-eyed ones. Capsule included or more or less equalling the calyx, subglobose. Seeds many, c. 0.5 mm long, angled, blackish.

Fl. Per.: May-June.

Holotype: Kidarkanta, Garhwal, Royle in 1831 (LIV!).

Distribution: N.W. & W. Himalaya, E. Afghanistan.

The species is fairly common and gregarious in alpine pastures, meadows, by melting snow from 2600-4300 m, where boggy or peaty conditions prevail.