plant stemless, flowering 33 cm to nearly 50 cm high. leaves 20–40 in a subfasciculate rosette, 25–30 cm long, densely and minutely pale-appressed-lepidote throughout; sheath distinct, elliptic, 4 cm long; blade linear-triangular, long-attenuate, 10–12 mm wide, chartaceous when dry. inflorescence: peduncle erect, slender, shorter than to barely exceeding the leaves, glabrous; peduncle bracts exceeding the internodes, elliptic, acute, the lower ones with foliaceous blades, the upper apiculate, nerved; fertile part simple, lax, linear, many flowered, 13–18 cm long, 35–40 mm wide; rachis wholly exposed by the bracts, straight and not at all geniculate, angled with decurrent lines from the bracts, slightly thickened at the insertion of the flowers, glabrous, internodes ca 5 mm long; floral bracts spreading, triangular-ovate, with strongly curved sides, 13–19 mm long, nearly or quite 4 times the internodes, equaling or slightly shorter than the sepals, carinate, faintly nerved, lepidote toward apex, becoming glabrous. flowers fragrant, appearing sessile because the short pedicel continues the lines of the sepals; sepals free, elliptic, acute, rigid, faintly nerved, nearly glabrous outside, subdensely brown-lepidote inside, the adaxial ones sharply carinate; petals white, the blade rhombic, broadly acute, 11 mm long. stamens deeply included, much exceeding the pistil. fruits fusiform-cylindric, very slender, 40–45 mm long.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.