Plants 13-80 cm. Roots 4-10 × 3-6 mm. Stems: sheaths 3-6, cauline, bladeless, striate, scarious, glabrous. Leaves 0-5, mostly basal; distinct petiole absent; blade lanceolate, 10-50 × 1-3 cm. Inflorescences 5-19 cm; floral bracts green basally, becoming reddish brown apically, elliptic, 21-32 × 15 mm, apex acute or acuminate; basal portions of bracts, rachis, and outer surfaces of sepals densely hairy with many-septate, tapered, tortuous hairs. Flowers cream or white; perianth parts with 1 or more longitudinal green stripes or markings; sepals lanceolate, 9-20 × 3.6-7 mm, apex acute to mucronate; dorsal sepal 15-18 mm; petals lanceolate, 9-20 × 4-5 mm, base arcuate, apex acute; lip 8-16 × 5.2-7.9 mm, with short basal claw ca. 1 mm; column 8-10 mm; anther cap 7-8 mm; pollinaria 8 mm; rostellum needlelike, 4 mm; pedicellate ovary 7-10 mm. Capsules ascending, ovoid.

Flowering Sep--Feb. Open grassy slopes, sand pine-oak woodlands, especially in zones of periodic seepage; 1900--2200 m; Ariz., Tex.; Mexico.

In the flora Stenorrhynchos michuacanum grows in the Huachuca and Santa Catalina mountains of Arizona and the Chisos and Chinati mountains of Texas. This rather robust species has stems 2-10 mm thick. The flowers are densely hairy externally with many-septate, tapered, tortuous hairs. Recent field work (R. A. Coleman 1996) has shown that the species is more frequent than previously thought.