Babiana scabrifolia is a perennial plant of 5–15 cm (2.0–5.9 in) high that annually forms leaves and flowers from an underground corm and is assigned to the Iris family.

The lower lateral lobes are adorned with a cream-coloured or white splash in its basal half accentuated by dark violet to blue and have undulating or crisped margins.

[1] Babiana mucronata occurs in the same area as B. scabrifolia but it has upright stems that reach into the air and are enveloped by a fibrous collar below ground, has floral bracts with dry, rusty brown tips, and much smaller blue-violet flowers with an acrid, unpleasant smell or sometimes scentless.

Babiana ambigua lacks a collar of fibres surrounding the underground parts of the stem, and the margins of the lower lateral tepal lobes are plane.

B. scabrifolia is equipped with a fibrous collar enveloping the stem, has lower lateral tepal lobes with undulating margins, and a sweet, mostly daffodil-like smell.

[1] This species was first described by Friedrich Wilhelm Klatt in 1882, based on a collection made in 1830 by Johann Franz Drège from the Langevallei near Clanwilliam, using a name that had been suggested by Joachim Brehm, who had failed to make a valid description.

[2] Babiana scabrifolia can be found in the north-eastern Cederberg to the Olifants River Valley around Citrusdal and the Nardous Mountains in the Western Cape province of South Africa.