plant stemless, flowering 5 dm high. leaves (inner) utriculate-rosulate, 4 dm long; sheath elliptic, distinct, very stiff, dark cinereous with pale margins, smooth, lustrous; blade linear, subrounded and apiculate, 34 mm wide, glabrous, stiff and lustrous when dry. inflorescence: peduncle erect, shorter than the leaves, rather stout; peduncle bracts imbricate, appressed, elliptic, acute, subglabrous; fertile part rather amply twice-branched, erect, polystichous, slightly exceeding the leaves, laxly once-branched except for a few subdichotomously divided lower branches, sub pyramidal, 15 cm long, 15 cm in diameter, glabrous; axis stout, terete; primary bracts elliptic, subulate-acuminate, much shorter than the branches; branches to 10 cm long, spreading to subreflexed; spikes very laxly 16-flowered, without sterile bracts; rachis slightly geniculate, somewhat angled; floral bracts suberect, ovate-triangular, narrowly rounded, 10 mm long, much shorter than the sepals, ecarinate, subcoriaceous, prominently nerved. flowers: pedicel short, stout; sepals free, elliptic, narrowly rounded, subsymmetrical, 18 mm long, glabrous.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.