leaves to 5 dm long, densely and minutely lepidote throughout; blade ligulate, 7 –8 cm wide at the base, minutely spinulose-serrate, broadly rounded and apiculate. inflorescence laxly once-branched, glabrous, 3 dm long or more; primary bracts narrowly lanceolate, about equaling the stipes; spikes all slenderly stipitate, to 8 cm long, 12 mm in diameter, 40–50-flowered; floral bracts broadly ovate, broadly acute or obtuse, mucronate, much shorter than the sepals, stramineous, strongly nerved. flowers much compressed, 9 mm long without the petals; sepals asymmetric, nerved, 5 mm long, mucro 1 mm long.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.