plant flowering 2 m high. leaves to 75 cm long; sheath smoother than the blades and brownish but scarcely wider, small, subentire, sparsely and obscurely lepidote; blade linear, attenuate, pungent, 2 cm wide, covered above with pale appressed scales, laxly serrate. inflorescence: peduncle erect, 15 mm in diameter at base, glabrous, densely and minutely red spotted; peduncle bracts erect, serrulate, the lowest subfoliaceous, much exceeding the internodes, the highest broadly triangular, small, much shorter than the internodes; fertile part amply twice-branched, lax, glabrous; axis straight; primary bracts like the upper peduncle-bracts, much shorter than the sterile bases of the branches; branches subspreading, to 28 cm long, divided toward apex, the basal 2/3 sterile; secondary bracts like the floral bracts; spikes slender, slightly arching, cylindric, short-stipitate, 4–9 cm long, 1 cm in diameter, dense except near base, many-flowered; floral bracts erect, very broadly ovate, apiculate, 5 mm long, about equaling the sepals, pale, red-punctate, thick, probably fleshy, hyaline-margined. flowers subsessile; sepals free, broadly elliptic, subobtuse, 5 mm long, the adaxial broadly alate-carinate; petals broadly rounded, 7 mm long, white, drying flavous. stamens included. pistil: ovary wholly superior.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1974. Pitcairnioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.