plant flowering about 1 m high. leaves exceeding the inflorescence, entire, broadly but distinctly petiolate; blade lanceolate, acuminate, 8 dm long, 45 mm wide, coarsely appressed-lepidote or glabrous. inflorescence: peduncle stout, white-lanate; peduncle bracts densely imbricate, elliptic, acuminate, scantly lepidote, the lower ones green, the upper ones tinged with brownish-purple; fertile part simple, densely subspicate, sceptriform, 25_ cm long, 25 mm in diameter, many-flowered; floral bracts strict, ovate, long-acuminate, 5 cm long, 16 mm wide, much exceeding the sepals, green tinged with purple, conspicuously hyaline margined when dry. flowers 65 mm long, barely exserted from the bracts; pedicel very short, obconic; sepals oblong, rounded, apiculate, 25–30 mm long, over 4 mm wide, glabrous; petals linear, obtuse, about 6 cm long, pale-ochraceous, naked. pistil: ovary more than three-fourths superior; ovules long-caudate.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1974. Pitcairnioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.