Albuca flaccida is a bulbous perennial growing flowering stems to heights varying between 40 cm and 1 m. The three to five fleshy channelled leaves are grey-green, long, tapering to their tips and clasping the stem at the base. The species is winter growing, summer dormant.
The fragrant flowers grow in a raceme on a sturdy, green flower stalk (scape). This species, as do several other Albuca plants, may produce more than one scape per season, as seen here. The pedicels are long, subtended by large, triangular bracts with long, thin, attenuating tips. The tepals are about 2 cm long, sometimes with broad green bands down the centre of their outside surfaces. Each inner tepal, shorter than the outer three, has a hinged flap at its tip and some white colouring. The outer ones flare open while the inner ones remain together.
Flowering happens late winter and early spring. Much wind dispersed seed is produced. In habitat A. flaccida grows on sandy soil in the southwestern Cape (Manning, 2007; www.pacificbulbsociety.org).