plant stemless, flowering to 6 dm high. leaves about 15 in a dense subutriculate rosette, 2 dm long; sheath broadly ovate, very large, densely and minutely brown-punctulate, margins and apex dark violet; blade ligulate, abruptly acute and apiculate, 18 mm wide, minutely violet-spotted, subglabrous, chartaceous when dry. inflorescence: peduncle erect, stout, exceeding the leaves; peduncle bracts erect, short, densely imbricate, foliaceous; fertile part many-flowered, amply paniculate with the lower branches divided, slenderly thyrsoid, 3 dm long, 5 cm in diameter; axes angled, glabrous; primary bracts lower ones like the peduncle-bracts, ample, equaling or exceeding the axillary branches; spikes subdense, rarely more than 6-flowered, elliptic in outline, abruptly acute, 4 cm long, 22 mm wide; rachis nearly straight; floral bracts erect, laxly imbricate, hardly concealing the rachis at anthesis, subobtuse, 20–25 mm long, coriaceous, glabrous, carinate and prominently nerved toward the apex. flowers suberect, short-pedicellate; sepals oblong, obtuse, 18 mm long, submembranaceous, sparsely punctulate-lepidote, the adaxial ones short-connate and slightly carinate; petals only slightly longer than the sepals. fruits stout, short-beaked, 16 mm long.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.