plant small, with rosette leaves erect, elongate; roots fibrous, few; stem is short, covered with rudimentary leaves. leaves ca 20, stout, reddish-gray, 28 cm long, sheaths very distinct, 2–2.5 cm, abruptly contracted into the blade; blade linear-subulate, 5 mm broad, lepidote, twice as long as the peduncle, all equally in length, elegant. inflorescence: peduncle 40 cm long; peduncle bracts remote, with a linear-lanceolate sheath clasping the peduncle, with a long setaceous blade; fertile part paniculate, 13 cm long, lax, brownish-furfuraceous, once branched of ca 10 spikes; primary bracts the lower ones long foliaceous and exceeding the spike, soon ovate-lanceolate, with cuspidate apex, subequal to or shorter than the spikes; spikes divergent or spreading, short, with 6–8 flowers, 2–2.5, the upper ones 4.5 cm apart, barely 2 cm long; floral bracts ovate, acute, open, half as long calyx, gray. flowers sessile, subdistichous, remote, minute, white; sepals broadly ovate, densely furfuraceous lepidote of star-shaped trichomes; petals forming a narrow chamber, ovate-lanceolate, glued together into a tube beneath. stamens slightly shorter than the petals, the anthers subsagittate, with almost equal filaments; pollen grains linear-oblong, in solution, 28–32 mu long, 46 mu broad. pistil: ovary globose, less than half the petals; style deteriorated with indistinct stigma; ovules linear-oblong, appendiculate. fruits unknown;.Translated by E.J.Gouda from: Wittmack 1889b. (protologue) Plantae Lehmannianae in Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador etc. collectae, Bromeliaceae in Engler, A..