plant stemless, flowering 25–150 cm high. leaves densely rosulate, 30–45 cm long, obscurely punctulate-lepidote, green, sometimes suffused or marked with red or purple; sheath conspicuous, elliptic or ovate, 8 cm broad, densely brown punctulate-lepidote; blade ligulate, narrowly acuminate or subacute, chanaled at the base to nearly flat toward the apex, 3–4(–6 smith!) cm wide, thin when dry, subglabrous, (glaucous-)green, often tinged reddish abaxially near the base. inflorescence: peduncle erect, stout, equaling or exceeding the leaves, glabrous; peduncle bracts densely imbricate, foliaceous with divergent to spreading blades; fertile part ample compound, once or twice branched, with most of the branches divided except the upper ones, narrowly sub-pyramidal or cylindric, to (17-)22–33(–80) cm long; axes glabrous, angled, bright orange-red, often flexuous toward apex; primary bracts the lower ones lanceolate with spreading ligulate to attenuate green blades, often much exceeding the axillary branches, the orange-red sheathing part clasping the base of the branches, the upper broadly ovate, orange red, much shorter but exceeding the sterile base of the branches up to reaching half way the spike; branches short stipitate with one bicarinate (or two) sterile bract at the base, 2–4.5 cm apart, divergent to spreading, 7–10(–15) cm long, the lower often of 3–4 spikes; spikes elliptic or lanceolate, acute, subdense, (4-)6–8-flowered, complanate, 3–6 cm long, 1–1.3 cm wide; floral bracts erect, imbricate but so narrow as to expose the rachis, (10-)14–22(–27) mm long, elliptic-ovate, sub-rounded or obtuse and apiculate, slightly exceeding the sepals, ca two and a half times as long as the internodes but the lower longer and about 5 times longer, convex and slightly if at all carinate at the apex (lower ones), coriaceous with hyalin margins, even or nerved toward the apex, subglabrous or inconspicuously punctulate lepidote at upper margins, pale green to orange-red in upper half. flowers suberect, 25–30 mm long; receptacle short 2 x 2.5 mm, bicarinate; sepals elliptic to ovate-ianceolate, broad obtuse or rounded (or indistinctly apiculate), (9-)10–15(–17) mm long, 5.5 mm wide, thin coriaceous in center base, nerved (adaxially and when dry), subglabrous, the adaxial ones bluntly carinate (thickened center), short (1.5 mm) connate, adaxial one subfree; corolla tubular except the apex, the widest in the center; petals lanceolate to linear, obtuse or rounded, (15-)18–27 x 4.5–5 mm, exceeding the stamens and pistil, pale violet in upper half, speckled toward the margins and sometimes with white margins. stamens subequelly 20–23 mm long; filament slenderly strap-shaped, white, twinning in the lower half, slightly thicker above; anther 2.8 mm, white drying pale brown, sub-basifixed, bilobed at the base, apiculate at apex; pollen cream colored. pistil just exceeding the stamens, ca 23 mm; ovary sub-pyriform, tapering from near the base to distal end, slightly contracted into the style, green; style slender, white to pale green; stigma violet often with green margins, condupicate-spiralized, papillose. fruits cylindric, short-beaked, 3 cm long.Emended description : Gouda et al. 2018-2022. Encyclopaedia of bromeliads .