Babiana mucronata is a perennial plant species that grows to about 5–18 cm (2.0–7.1 in) high and annually forms leaves and flowers from an underground corm.

Each flower consists of a perianth that is merged below into a funnel-shaped tube of 10–25 mm (0.39–0.98 in) long but splits into six unequal tepals.

[1][2] It has a simple or branched, more or less upright or outward bending spike of at least 3, but usually 6-12, dark to pale violet-blue, acrid- or metallic smelling or sometimes odourless, mirror-symmetrical flowers.

Below the perianth sits a densely hairy ovary that carries the style that splits into three branches of 3–4 mm (0.12–0.16 in) long opposite the middle half of the anthers.

minor is mostly 5–8 cm (2.0–3.1 in) high, with the inflorescence shorter than the leaves and the perianth tube 10–14 mm (0.39–0.55 in) long.

[1] Other species in the section Babiana with blue flowers have stems that are almost entirely underground with the leaves extending beyond the inflorescence.

It was based on a specimen that was collected somewhere in South Africa and illustrated by Von Jacquin in part 2, plate 253 of his Icones rariorum plantarum.

[1] John Bellenden Ker Gawler in 1802 proposed to use the genus name Babiana for the species of bobbejaantjie.

[1] The species name mucronata is derived from the Latin word mucro, which is a reference to the pointed, often sharp extension of the mid vein that extends beyond the abruptly terminating leaf.