Rhizomatous, herbaceous perennial. Leaves basal, ovate in outline, to 60 cm long and 30 cm wide, deeply and broadly lobed, the lobes with coarsely and irregularly toothed margins, sometimes with one or two distant lobes along the petiole, upper surface glossy dark green, glabrous, paler and duller beneath, with scattered hairs along the major veins; petioles to c. 50 cm long. Inflorescence a dense spike to 1.5 m high, many-flowered, each flower subtended by a sessile ovate, spinose bract 25–40 mm long; calyx 2-lipped, purplish, both lips entire or nearly so, the lower 25–35 mm long, the upper exceeding the lower by 5–10 mm and slightly hooding; corolla 1-lipped, 3-lobed, exceeding calyx by up to c. 10 mm, white with purplish veins; stamens 4, filaments robust 4, anthers c. 1 cm long, densely fringed adjacent to slits. Fruit ovoid, acute, c. 2 cm long. Flowers spring to summer.
VVP, GipP, OtP, WaP, HSF, OtR, Strz. Commonly cultivated and noted to have escaped to some extent in the Dandenong Ranges and Yarra Valley. Native to Europe.
