plant small and with a habit like that of lycopodium selago; roots present; stems many from a single point, densely massed, simple or few-branched, rarely more than 5 cm long including the longest branch. leaves densely polystichous, 4–9 mm long, but averaging about 6 mm; (of differing thicknesses) sheaths distinct, broadly ovate or triangular to suborbicular, usually as long as the blade, glabrous below, membranous, scarious, with 3 central often contiguous nerves and broad nerveless margins; blade erect, making the stem appear terete, subtriangular, acute, concave above, convex below, becoming obtusely carinate toward base, to 2 mm wide, densely cinereous-lepidote, the scales varying from suborbicular to strongly asymmetric with an elliptic or triangular basal lobe, denticulate, spreading at base so that under a lens the leaves appear reflexed-tomentose. inflorescence: peduncle often lacking so that the inflorescence is sunk among the terminal leaves, when present evidently elongating only after anthesis, erect, slender, glabrous, sulcate, naked or with a single lanceolate bract enfolding its extreme base, to 3 cm long; fertile part usually terminal but sometimes becoming pseudoaxillary by the elongation of the stem, always 1-flowered; floral bracts triangular-ovate, to 7 mm long, hyaline with a single median excurrent nerve, glabrous or with a few scales toward apex; (always shorter than the sepals, 1 ( –3) nerved and glabrous, 3.5 mm long) flower subsessile. flowers: sepals narrowly elliptic, obtuse or acute, 5–9 mm long, hyaline, 3-nerved, slightly exceeding the floral bract, equally connate for about 1 mm;( 5 (–6) nerved; 1/3 to 2/3 along or the edges are scaled, 5 mm long) petals linear with little distinction between claw and blade, erect or nearly so at anthesis, fleshy, sulphur-yellow drying to orange-brown;(yellow, 5.5 mm long) stamens deeply included, exceeding the pistil. stamens: anther linear. pistil: ovary sub-prismatic, stout, abruptly contracted into the short style; stigma capitate. fruits slenderly cylindric, abruptly short-beaked, to 17 mm long; seeds few.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.