plant stemless, flowering 17–40 cm high. leaves many in a crateriforrn rosette, 25–42 cm long; sheath broadly ovate, 7 cm long, dark castaneous with fine, white scales; blade recurving, narrowly triangular, caudate-attenuate, 12 mm wide at base, minutely pale lepidote throughout. inflorescence: peduncle erect, exceeding the leaves; peduncle bracts imbricate, with linear-subulate blades to 15 cm long, red-brown; fertile part short-pinnate or digitate or rarely simple; primary bracts like the upper peduncle-bracts, scarcely larger than the floral bracts; spikes 1–8, erect to divergent, narrowly lanceolate, attenuate, 6–9 cm long including the slender, bracteate, sterile base, 15 mm wide, complanate densely 8–12-flowered; floral bracts lanceolate, acute, 25–30 cm long, exceeding the sepals, strongly carinate, thin, strongly nerved. flowers subsessile; sepals lanceolate, the adaxial carinate; petals to 55 cm long. stamens exserted.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. (protologue) Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.