plant flowering scarcely 5 dm high, slender. leaves to 14 cm long; sheath ample, 3 cm long; blade narrowly triangular, ca 1 cm wide, covered with pale appressed scales beneath, very laxly serrate with slender spines 2 mm long. inflorescence: peduncle slender, glabrous; peduncle bracts many times shorter than the internodes, ovate with narrowly triangular apices, entire, the central ones only 7 mm long; fertile part simple, very lax, sparsely lepidote; floral bracts spreading or reflexed, ovate, acuminate, much shorter than the sepals. flowers: pedicel to 3 mm long. flowers spreading at anthesis, 12 mm long; sepals ovate, apiculate, 6 mm long; petals much exceeding the stamens, the blades erect, broadly obovate, obtuse, slightly carinate. stamens: filament free above the common tube with the petals, the anthers linear, apiculate, slightly recurved. pistil: style about 1/3 as long as the ovary.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1974. Pitcairnioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.