plant stemless, flowering 4 dm high. leaves many in a dense rosette, finely appressed-lepidote throughout, dark-green, the outer ones with conspicuous elliptic flat sheaths brown-lepidote on the inside and filiform-attenuate blades, 15 mm wide at the base, carinate, subcomplicate. inflorescence: peduncle erect, stout; peduncle bracts densely imbricate, red, their blades foliaceous, reflexed, involute; fertile part sublaxly compound with the lower branches digitately divided, 23 cm long, 9 cm in diameter, glabrous; axis stout, bright red; primary bracts with at least their sheaths shorter than the axillary branches and enfolding their sterile bases, red, the middle and lower ones with narrow green blades; spikes suberect, all distinctly stipitate with several red sterile bracts at the base, lanceolate in outline, 6 cm long, 1 cm wide, densely 6-flowered; floral bracts 2 cm long, exceeding the sepals, coriaceous, even, lustrous, green, sharply carinate, straight toward the apex. flowers sessile; sepals acute, 15 mm long, subcoriaceous, green, adaxially alate-carinate and connate for 5 mm petals tubular-erect, 3 cm long, pale violet. stamens and pistil exserted.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.