Rhizomes horizontal, brownish, thick, short, praemorse, not brittle. Scapes 1-3, round in cross section, 1.6-3.5 dm, slender, glabrous. Bracts held well above ground, sessile; blade mottled with darker green blotches, mottling becoming obscure with age, elliptic-ovate to obovate, 6-8.5 × 2.6-4 cm, base rounded, apex obtuse or rounded, rarely acute. Flower odor musty or funguslike; sepals displayed above bracts, bases at right angle to scape axis, widely spreading with recurved tips, dark purple on adaxial surface, lanceolate to oblong, 20-25 × 4-5 mm, margins entire, apex obtuse; petals long-lasting, erect, weakly connivent, at least partially obscuring stamens, dark purple or maroon, rarely yellow, not spirally twisted, linear-elliptic to oblanceolate, 2-4 × 0.3-0.8 cm, ± thick-textured, margins entire, flat, apex acute; stamens erect, 12-16.5 mm; filaments purple, 2-3 mm, slender; anthers erect, straight, purple to yellow, 10-15 mm, slender, dehiscence introrse; connectives straight, extending 0.1-1 mm beyond anther sacs; ovary purple, ovoid, 3-angled, 4-11 mm; stigmas erect, spreading-recurved, distinct, purple to whitish, sessile, subulate, 2-4 mm, fleshy, thickened basally. Fruits dark greenish purple, fragrance not reported, ovoid, swollen enough to conceal its 3-angled nature, 1 cm, pulpy, moist.

Flowering spring (early--mid Apr). Mature pine and hardwood forests, banks and ridges of dissected stream- beds, rather dense shade, low sandy flatwoods; 0--10 m; La., Tex.