plant evidently in dense masses, short caulescent, branching from near the inflorescence; roots present; stems 3–4 cm long, appearing 6–8 mm thick because of the slightly inflated leaf-sheaths surrounding it. leaves polystichous; sheath triangular-ovate, 12 x 10 mm, lower half glabrous on both sides and nerved, with broad hyalin margins, densely coarsely lepidote upward; blade (7-) 10–17 cm long, divergent to spreading, the inner erect, setaceous, subulate, nearly straight, ca 2 mm wide at base (4 mm when spreaded), with purple margins at the base, long filiform attenuate, densely and coarcely cinereous to white lepidote with retrorse-divergent scales. inflorescence: peduncle erect, 10–20 cm long, 1 mm in diameter, lepidote near the nodes to glabrescent; peduncle bracts involute clasping the peduncle, erect, the lower ones narrowly ovate with a setaceous blade much exceeding the internodes, upward soon shorter and acuminate, much shorter than the internodes; fertile part simple spicate or rarely with a short branch at base, complanate, subdensely distichously 7–16-flowered, densely lepidote except the petals; rachis sub-slender, nearly straight or slightly flexuous at the base, internodes 2.4 mm long, excaved near the flower, transversally sub-rectangular; floral bracts 4 x 6 mm, very broadly ovate, acuminate, papyraceous with thin hylin margins, equaling about half the sepals except the lower one to about equaling the sepals, very densely subappressed lepidote of large cinereous trichomes exceeding the margins. flowers divergent, not contiguous with each other, 6 mm long, more than twice as long as the internodes; receptacle short (less than 1 mm), obconic, lepidote; sepals free, 4.5–5 x 2.5–2.8 mm, ovate, long acuminate, densely subappressed lepidote with large scales exceedig the margins, adaxially lustrous glabrescent, nearly symmetrical, the adaxial ones bluntly carinate; petals (inmature in ttype) cream colored, elliptic, acutish or obtuse, probably slightly exceeding the sepals at maturity if at all. stamens (inmature) deeply included, ca 3 mm long, exceeding the pistil; filament flaccid, strap-shaped; anther blunt saggitate with two blunt lobes at base and apiculate apex, dorsifixed near the base, whitish. pistil ca 2 mm long; ovary globose; style about equaling the ovary in length; stigma minute, erect, papillose. fruits slenderly cylindric, 16.5 mm long, short beaked.Emended description : Gouda et al. 2018-2022. Encyclopaedia of bromeliads .