plant stemless, flowering to 30 cm high, medium size. leaves numerous, forming a dense vase not in anyway bulbose rosette; sheath brown; blade gradually narrowing to the acute but not pungent tip, to 30 cm long and to 10 mm wide in the middle, rigid, from sub-erect to curving and spreading, near anthesis the inside wine-red later with narrow and obscurely wine margins the remanider below light green above glaucous green, the back lightly and nearly punctulate lepidote. inflorescence: peduncle short, strong, strictly erect; peduncle bracts sheaths densely covering the peduncle and if not, by the older blades with an acute tip from the lower part, red, involute; fertile part few flowered, once-branched panicle, in a typical plant the terminal spike is 60 mm long, 12 mm wide and a single lateral spike smaller and pinnate, almost equalling the leaves; primary bracts much shorter than the spikes, with no blade, all are the same size as the sheaths of the peduncle bracts; spikes dense fan shaped, to 6 flowered, floral bracts densely imbricate, rigid, smooth, the back towards the tip with dense pale lepidote, much exceeding the sepals, to 20 mm long, strongly concave not keeled, tip not incurved not mucronate, lower part red upper green. flowers subsessile, strictly erect, to 40 mm long; sepals abaxial free, adaxial joined to the middle, tigid, to 15 mm long; petals a lovely violet, forming a club-shaped tube above, the tip minutely recurved, 20 mm longer than the sepals, shorter than the stamens. pistil: style longer than the stamens.Edited from : Mez 1935. Bromeliaceae (part 1-4) in Engler, A. (ed) Das Pflanzenreich.