plant flowering to 8 dm high. leaves rosulate, 30–55 cm long; sheath ample, 10–15 cm long, black, covered with a very thin paint-like layer of white scales; blade ligulate, broadly truncate and apiculate, to 7 cm wide, obscurely lepidote, red beneath, green above. inflorescence: peduncle erect, slender, glabrous; peduncle bracts elliptic, apiculate, all but the lowest imbricate; fertile part laxly once-branched, cylindric, 3 dm long, glabrous; primary bracts broadly ovate, acute, 2–3 cm long, always shorter than the spikes, membranaceous, striate, red; spikes suberect, lanceolate, 3–4 cm long, laxly 11-flowered, short-stipitate; rachis slender, geniculate; floral bracts like the primary bracts but obtuse, equaling the sepals, ecarinate. flowers divergent to spreading; sepals oblong, obtuse, 10 mm long, subequally short-connate, the adaxial carinate; petals greenish or white. stamens included.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.