plant flowering 6 dm high. leaves (inner) to 17 cm long; sheath ovate, 3 cm long; blade 7 mm wide, laxly and finely serrate, covered with appressed cinereous scales on both sides, becoming glabrous especially beneath. inflorescence: peduncle 5 mm in diameter, ferruginous lanate at first; peduncle bracts broadly ovate with long linear blades, serrulate, all but the highest exceeding the internodes; fertile part pseudosimple with one-flowered branches, very lax, over 3 dm long, densely ferruginous-lanate; lower floral bracts like the peduncle-bracts, exceeding the flowers. flowers: pedicel suberect to spreading, to 8 mm long; sepals broadly ovate, acuminate and thickened at apex, 10–12 mm long, fimbriate, ecarinate, nerved; petals 15 mm long, orange (! duarte), the blades suberect, broadly obovate, ecarinate. stamens included; filament free above the common tube; stigmas sessile.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1974. Pitcairnioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.