plant stemless, to 65 cm high. leaves 4–5 dm long; sheath large, elliptic, very dark at base, covered with a glaucous coat of thin appressed whitish scales; blade ligulate, flat, broadly retuse and apiculate, 3–4 cm wide, subdensely pale-lepidote beneath, soon glabrous above. inflorescence: peduncle slender, erect, glabrous; peduncle bracts strict except for the acute divergent apex, elliptic, all but the lowest imbricate, thin; fertile part twice-branched, slenderly thyrsoid, 3 dm long, glabrous; primary bracts lanceolate, acuminate, shorter than the branches, red; branches suberect, to 75 mm long, consisting of a short naked base and 1–3 spikes; secondary bracts slightly larger than the floral bracts; spikes laxly 8-flowered; rachis slender, flexuous; floral bracts ovate, acute, to 11 mm long, equaling the sepals or slightly shorter, sharply carinate, thin, prominently nerved, red. flowers: pedicel 2 mm long. flowers spreading; sepals elliptic, broadly obtuse, 8 mm long, nerved, subequally shortconnate, the adaxial carinate; petals yellow, exceeding the stamens.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.