plant flowering s–7 dm high. leaves to 3 dm long; sheath large, suborbicular; blade narrowly triangular, abruptly acute, pungent, 2 cm wide, covered on both sides with a lustrous silvery membrance of coarse scales, laxly serrate with coarse uncinate spines 3.5 mm long. inflorescence: peduncle more or less furfuraceous toward base, glabrous elsewhere; peduncle bracts shorter than the internodes, ovate with acuminate apices, serrulate; fertile part simple, sublax, many-flowered, glabrous; floral bracts exceeded by the sepals, the lower lance triangular, the upper ovate and acute. flowers: pedicel to 5 mm long. flowers spreading at anthesis, later erect, 11 mm long; sepals elliptic, obscurely apiculate, 6 mm long; petals erect, orange, the blades cuneiform-obovate, broadly rounded, scarcely or not at all carinate. stamens included; filament free above the common tube with the petals (! mez in key but not in description), anthers linear, acuminate, strongly recurved. pistil: style slightly shorter than the ovary; ovules with a lateral securiform wing.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1974. Pitcairnioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.