plant flowering probably well over 1 m high. leaves very large, rigidly coriaceous; blade ligulate, 15 cm wide, rounded and triangular-apiculate, serrulate with spines barely 1 mm long, glabrous above, densely pale-appressed-lepidote below. inflorescence: peduncle 7–15 mm in diameter; peduncle bracts linear -lanceolate, acuminate, very densely imbricate, chartaceous, pale; fertile part elongate-thyrsoid, densely once-branched, more than 5 dm long, 10–18 cm in diameter; primary bracts like the peduncle-bracts, elongate, the lower two or three times as long as the axillary spikes, the upper about half as long as the spikes; spikes all sessile, suberect or spreading, cylindric, to 6 cm long, about 2 cm in diameter; floral bracts 2–6 mm long without the mucro, 5 mm wide, very broadly acute or obtuse, obscurely nerved, bearing a mucro 4 mm long at apex. flowers 9 mm long in fruit; sepals strongly asymmetric, ca 5 mm long, short -mucronate, pale-lepidote. pistil: ovary 3-angled, appressed-pale-lepidote.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.