plant flowering 1 m or higher. leaves rosulate, 5–6 dm long, sparsely and minutely lepidote, glaucous; sheath elliptic, ample, dark castaneous; blade ligulate, broadly rounded and cuspidate-apiculate, 8 cm wide, reticulate. inflorescence: peduncle erect, short, wholly covered by the leaves; fertile part elongate, very narrow, twice-branched, pale-flocculose, the axis flexuous; primary bracts strict and enfolding the axis, suborbicular, apiculate, the lowest 5 cm long and exceeding the basal flowers of the branches; branches strict, slightly divided or the highest simple, subdense, to 10 cm long; floral bracts broadly ovate, acuminate, 3 mm long, scarious, nerved. flowers: pedicel slender, equaling or exceeding the bracts. flowers divergent; sepals oblong, acute, 5 mm long, nerved; petals elliptic, barely exceeding the sepals, white. stamens included, strongly unequal, filaments forming a short tube with the sepals and petals. pistil: ovary slenderly fusiform, terete, wholly inferior; styles half connate. fruits: seeds long-caudate.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1974. Pitcairnioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.