plant caulescent, spreading by elongate stolons; stem ca 1 cm in diameter, covered with old leaf-sheaths. leaves many; sheath ovate, brown, pale-lepidote; blade dimorphic, some persistent and reduced to serrate brown spines, others deciduous along a straight transverse line, laxly serrate below the line, above the line petiolate, linear lanceolate, attenuate, entire, 32 cm long, 23 mm wide, about equaling the inflorescence, soon glabrous. inflorescence: peduncle erect, slender, white-flocculose; peduncle bracts erect, elliptic, acuminate, entire, sparsely flocculose, soon glabrous, the highest slightly exceeding the internodes; fertile part simple, densely few-flowered; floral bracts broadly ovate, acute, exceeding the pedicels but much shorter than the sepals, flocculose. flowers suberect, not secund; pedicel slender, 6 mm long; sepals narrowly lanceolate, acute, 33 mm long, not or slightly carinate, glabrous; petals 65–70 mm long, red, naked. pistil: ovary over 3/4 superior, ovules caudate.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1974. (protologue) Pitcairnioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.