plant stemless, flowering to 3 dm high. leaves few in a lax rosette, 2 dm long, appressed-lepidote; sheath hardly distinct; blade linear-triangular, long-attenuate, subpungent, rigid, 7 mm wide, cinereous or yellowish. inflorescence: peduncle slender, erect, shorter than the leaves; peduncle bracts tubular-erect, imbricate and wholly concealing the peduncle, sublanceolate, acute, lepidote toward apex; fertile part simple, rather lax, very narrowly lanceolate or linear, acute, ca 13 cm long, 8 mm wide, strongly complanate, about 22-flowered; rachis slightly but distinctly undulate, not much thickened at the base of the flowers; floral bracts erect or suberect, scarcely or not at all imbricate, about 7 mm apart, triangular-ovate, ecarinate, 19 mm long, 8 mm wide, enfolding and exceeding the sepals, submembranaceous, prominently nerved, glabrous. flowers subsessile; sepals equally very short-connate, lance-ovate, acute, to 12 mm long, scarcely carinate, coriaceous, nearly even, lustrous; petals 21 mm long, the claw linear, the blade broadly lanceolate, acute, reflexed at anthesis, yellow (or white - gilmartin). stamens deeply included.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.