plant stemless. leaves about 12 in a spreading rosette, 4 dm long; sheath distinct, elliptic, covered with fine cinereous dark-centered scales; blade ligulate, subrounded and apiculate, 4 cm wide, flat, subdensely lepidote with fine cinereous scales, conclorous or purple-spotted. inflorescence: peduncle erect, 3–4 mm in diameter, terete, sparsely lepidote; peduncle bracts erect and closely enfolding the peduncle, barely exceeding the internodes, elliptic, apiculate, subdensely appressed-iepidote; fertile part once-branched from a few spikes, usually rather dense, about equaling the leaves; axes appressed-lepidote at first; primary bracts like the peduncle-bracts, about half as long as the lower spikes, membranaceous; spikes mostly suberect, subsessile, elliptic, 4–9 cm long, 25–30 mm wide, strongly complanate, densely 4–12-flowered; rachis straight, angled; floral bracts very broadly ovate, acute, 15–25 mm long, densely imbricate before anthesis but later enfolding the flowers and exposing the rachis, about equaling the sepals, incurved and carinate toward apex, thin, nerved, green, drying stramineous, sparsely lepidote. flowers: sepals free, ecarinate, 12–20 mm long, petal-blades suborbicular, 15 mm in diameter, purple with a white eye. stamens deeply included, exceeding the pistil.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.