plant acaulescent, flowering to ca 50 cm tall, with a spreading to ascending rosette. leaves 21–31 cm, exceeded by the inflorescence; sheath more or less conspicuous, tapering into the blade, stiff char¬taceous, elliptic to oblong (-ovate), 7.4–13.5 x 3.7–6.2 cm, with thin and pale margins, castaneous and appearing pruinose caused by a coat of white appressed scales outside, pale-brown inside, cinereously lepidote; blade chartaceous, (sub-) ligulate, 14–21 x 3.5–4(–5) cm, obtuse (broadly acute) and acuminate, glabrous or obscurely lepidote at both sides, green with a fine wavy transverse pattern of darker green or maroon lines (tessellate, mostly lost in dried material). inflorescence erect, densely once-branched of about 12 two-flowered branches, fertile part 5–8 cm long, cylindric, green with gelatinous exudate at anthesis; peduncle straight, 33.5–40 cm long, 4–8 mm in diam., densely covered by bracts; peduncle bracts erect to divergent, at the apex, very densely imbricate, char¬taceous, the lower ones lanceolate, the upper ones more ovate, acuminate to acute, much exceeding the internodes, tessellate, glabrescent; axis short and hidden, stout, straight, strongly rugose when dry; primary bracts spreading and curving at the apex, clasping the flowers, sub¬coriaceous, somewhat plicate, ovate, triangular-acute or acuminate, much exceeding the 2 fasciculate flowers, glabrescent, pale-green; pedun¬cle from almost none to 5 mm long, subspreading, stout; branches much reduced, subspreading, typically two-flowered; rachis reduced to nearly none; floral bracts erect, straight and conduplicate, subcoriaceous but membranaceous when dry, soon disintegrating, even, (broadly) elliptic to ovate-oblong, 1.8–2.3 cm long, exceeding the sepals, acute to rounded, often torn-incised, carinate, glabrescent, green; the two flowers con¬tiguous, sessile. flowers: sepals coriaceous, even, elliptic to (ob-) ovate, 1.1–2 cm long, slightly thinner at the margins, obtuse to rounded, slightly incurv¬ed, free, ecarinate, very sparsely and minutely lepidote at both sides, green; petals campanulate, elliptic to obovate, 2.3–3.4 cm long, free, lustrous pale-green or whitish, bearing two ligules at the base, ligules unequally bidentate, half adnate to the petals, 4–6 mm long. stamens in hood configuration over the pistil and just exceeded by it, filaments ovate in lower part, abruptly contracted into a slender upper part, straight, loosely adnate to the petals, flattened, whitish, anthers 5–8 mm long, pollen pale-yellow. pistil: ovary ovoid, 4–6 mm long, contracted in¬to the subslender style, stigma three-cupped. fruits cylindric or slenderly ellipsoid, 2–2.5 cm long and ca 0.7 cm in diam., just exceeding the floral bracts, obtuse and apiculate, brownish to castaneous.Edited from : Gouda 1987. Bromeliaceae (subfamily Tillandsioideae) in Görts-van Rijn, A.R.A. (ed.) Flora of the Guiana\'s Series A: Phanerogams.