plant stemless, flowering 2–5 dm high. leaves in a dense crateriform rosette, 15–22 cm long; sheath broadly elliptic, distinct, 6–8 cm long, very finely brown-punctulate lepidote, often purple toward apex; blade ligulate, flat, 2–3 cm wide, glabrous above, very inconspicuously punctulate-lepidote below. inflorescence: peduncle erect, slender, very short, glabrous; peduncle bracts erect, densely imbricate, lanceolate, acuminate; fertile part broadly pyramidal, laxly compound with simple branches or the lower ones rarely somewhat divided, exceeding the leaves, 12–35 cm long; axis nearly straight, glabrous; primary bracts lower ones like the peduncle-bracts, their blades usually exceeding the axillary spikes, the upper primary bracts ovate and much shorter than the spikes; spikes sessile, divergent to spreading, linear-lanceolate, acute, densely 4-–6-flowered with several sterile bracts at base, to 8 cm long, 1 cm wide, complanate; rachis slightly flexuous, glabrous; floral bracts erect, imbricate, broadly lanceolate or lance-ovate, acute or apiculate, 15–20 mm long, exceeding the sepals, two and a half times as long as the internodes, ecarinate, subchartaceous, prominently nerved, glabrous. flowers subsessile; sepals oblong, broadly acute or obtuse, 12–13 mm long, free, the adaxial carinate; petals white; blade elliptic, 6 mm long. stamens included. fruits cylindric, short-beaked, 20–25 mm long.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.