plant caulescent, flowering 7 dm long. leaves 8 dm long; sheath broadly ovate, 3 cm long, coarsely sulcate, dark castaneous, finely brown-flocculose; petioles 1 cm wide, whitish-flocculose beneath, pectinate-serrate with dark slender spines 5 mm long; blade linear, attenuate with an apical subulus, 35 mm wide, with a very narrow median channel, entire, sparsely pale-flocculose beneath. inflorescence: peduncle about 1 cm in diameter; peduncle bracts erect, very densely imbrieate, the lowest foliaceous, the succeeding ones losing the blade and then the petiole but enlarging the sheath, the highest elliptic, over 15 cm long, pectinate serrate with a stout dark subulate apex, strongly nerved; fertile part simple, densely cylindric, 3 dm long, brown-flocculose; floral bracts erect, all exceeding the sepals, serrulate, thin, nerved, the lowest broadly ovate, the others linear-lanceolate. flowers: pedicel slender, 6 mm long; sepals narrowly triangular, 28 mm long, ecarinate, nerved; petals curved at anthesis, 65 mm long, naked, green. stamens included, anthers linear, 11 mm long. pistil: ovary 3 /4 superior; ovules caudate.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1974. Pitcairnioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.