plant flowering about 1 m high, red except the leaves. leaves to 7 dm long, very narrowly triangular, 8 cm wide, appressed-lepidote throughout, coarsely repand-serrate. inflorescence: peduncle elongate; peduncle bracts vaginiform, the upper ones about equaling the internodes; fertile part laxly once-branched, ca 7 dm long, 3 dm in diameter, glabrous; primary bracts lanceolate or ovate, acuminate, much exceeding the short sterile bases of the branches, thin; branches spreading, slender, sublaxly flowered; floral bracts broadly ovate, apiculate, much exceeding the 2 mm long pedicel; only the staminate flowers known, spreading. flowers: sepals broadly subelliptic, acute, 4 mm long; petals spatulate, subunguiculate, 7 mm long. stamens barely exceeding the petals; anther elliptic, 2.5 mm long; remnant of the ovary largely inferior, making the pedicel appear nearly 4 mm long.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1974. Pitcairnioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.