plant forming groups, stemless, flowering to 35 cm high, leaves numerous, making a dense rosette, 30 cm high, 30 cm diam. leaves: sheath broad ovate, 4 - 5 cm long, 3 - 3.5 cm wide, both sides dark brown lepidote; blade narrow lineal, long acuminate, rolled inwards, 18 –20 cm long, 1 cm wide next to sheath, underneath dense silver grey, topside few dense scales. inflorescence: peduncle erect, ca 5 cm long, 3 - 4 mm thick, hidden in rosette; peduncle bracts leaflike, much longer than the little short internodes; fertile part once-branched, almost sub-digitate, 9 - 12 lax compound spikes, ca 25 cm long, 5 - 6 cm wide; primary bracts erect, 2 - 2.5 cm long, reddish green, underneath dense grey scaled, shorter than the spike; spikes erect, almost terete, 5 - 10 mm thick, including the 5 cm long stem, 11 - 13 cm long, 5 - 6 flowered, with glabrous green visible rachis; floral bracts laxly distichous, erect, not keeled, overhang the sepals, ca 2 cm long, 8 mm wide, acuminate, dense grey lepidote, weakly nerved. flowers sessile, to 3 cm long, erect, adjacent to the glabrous rachis, touching the side; sepals 22 mm long, 6 mm wide, not keeled, green, glabrous; petals narrow tongue shaped, erect, blunt, ca 3 cm long, blue-violet. stamens: filament and stigma lobe green, widely exceeding the flower.Translated by Butcher from: Rauh 1976a. Bromelienstudien (Mitteilung 5). I. Neue und wenig bekannte Arten aus Peru und anderen Ländern .