plant flowering over 12 dm high. leaves incompletely known, minutely and inconspicuously appressed-lepidote throughout; sheath broadly elliptic but only a little wider than the blades; blade ligulate, broadly rounded and apiculate, 7–12 cm wide, entire or sparsely and obscurely serrulate toward base. inflorescence: peduncle stout, glabrous; fertile part laxly once-branched or the lowest branches with 2 sessile spikes, glabrous; primary bracts lanceolate, thin, about equaling the lower branches; stipe to 35 mm long; spikes cylindric, 5–8 cm long; floral bracts broadly ovate, much exceeded by the sepals, bearing a mucro to 4 mm long, even or nearly so, dark castaneous when dry; adaxial sepals elliptic, strongly asymmetric with a lateral wing equaling the terminal mucro, 5 mm long.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.