plant flowering 6–10 dm high. leaves rosulate, 6 dm long; sheath ovate-elliptic, very large, brown, densely and minutely lepidote; blade narrowly triangular, 4–7 cm wide, rigid when dry, covered with appressed cinereous scales. inflorescence: peduncle erect, stout, terete, subglabrous; peduncle bracts erect, foliaceous, much exceeding the internodes; fertile part erect, much exceeding the leaves, once-branched; axes glabrous; primary bracts rigid, much shorter than the spikes, the lower triangular with foliaceous decurved green blades, the upper ovate-elliptic, acute; spikes arching-decurved, stipitate with 1–2 sterile bracts at base, sublanceolate, acuminate, 19 cm long, 3 cm wide, 14-flowered, complanate; floral bracts densely imbricate, covering the rachis and exceeding the sepals, 45 mm long, carinate, straight and nerved toward apex, sublustrous. flowers subsessile; sepals equally subfree, lance-elliptic, narrowly obtuse, chartaceous, glabrous outside, punctulate-lepidote inside, nerved, the adaxial carinate; petals 47 mm long. stamens included.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.