Glabrous epiphyte. Leaves thin, ascending then spreading, the plant thus often broader than long; sheaths ovate; blades ligulate, acute or acuminate, caudate at apex, mostly 20-35 cm long and 1-2.5 cm wide, the inner leaves held well above scape. Inflorescences simple, flat-topped and cup-shaped, few-flowered, 15-25 cm long, the outer scape bracts leaflike, the inner ones orange-red, grading to red-orange tipped with yellow-orange, the innermost ones yellow-orange tipped with white, all becoming green in fruit; floral bracts white tinged with yellow, ca 4.5 cm long, scarcely longer than flowers; sepals slender, white; petals linear, +/- fused for most of their length, ca 3.5 cm long, yellow tipped with white; stamens 6, about as long as petals; filaments +/- flattened, adnate to petals much of their length; anthers ca 6.5 mm long; pollen white, sticky, amassing in large clusters; ovary superior. Capsules +/- 3-sided, ca 3 cm long and 5 mm wide, brown, acute at apex, smooth or rugose, the 3 valves splitting at maturity; seeds numerous, 1.5-2 mm long, the seminiferous areas brown, 3-4 mm long, bearing a folded tuft (coma) of brownish trichomes from base, the trichomes fused together at the fold in the middle, the distal part fused to the seminiferous area of the seed. Croat 10897. Common to locally abundant in the forest, especially in moist ravines, usually growing rather close to the ground on small trees or branches. Flowers mostly in the early rainy season, less often from late in the dry season to the middle of the rainy season. The fruits mature from the latter half of the rainy season through the dry season. The seeds of G. lingulata differ in their construction from those of G. monostachya. Although both species have the coma refolded at the middle, the distal end in G. lingulata is folded to the seed body, whereas it is not in G. monostachya. Upon drying, the coma of G. lingulata opens to form an airy and globular mass.