The fragrant, mirror-symmetric, blue to mauve flowers, consist of six tepals merged into a tube at their base, but with free lobes at the top.

Each flower has a mirror-symmetrical perianth that consists of a 10–19 mm (0.39–0.75 in) long, funnel-shaped or oblique tube from the base, that splits in six unequal tepals near the top.

[4] Babiana petiolata is most closely related to B. ambigua and shares the absence of the fibrous collar where the stem emerges, entirely split inner bracts and smooth ovaries, but the smooth, papillate or scabrid leaf blades that are inclined towards the ground, sit on a part of the leaf stems that does not form a sheath around the base of the higher leaves and so lacks wing-like extensions, has smaller flowers with a tube of only 11 mm long that emit an iris-scent and flowers from late June to July.

B. patula is easily mistaken for B. ambigua but it has a fibrous collar and the lower lateral tepals are yellow, not blotched white or cream-coloured.

B. montana looks a lot like B. ambigua but has a hard fibrous collar, floral bracts of only up to 2 cm long and style branches that expand only a little at their tips.

B. arenicola has 3-6 mm wide stiff leaves, a straight perianth tube of about 3 cm long, a style that branches near the base of the anthers and a minutely to prominently hairy ovary.

[4] This species was first described by Johann Jacob Roemer and Josef August Schultes in 1817 as Gladiolus ambiguus, based on material stored by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck at the herbarium of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle.

[4] Babiana ambigua can be found in the mountains and the coastal belt of the Western Cape province of South Africa between Riversdale in the southeast and the Gifberg in the northwest.