plant stemless, flowering ca 40 cm high. leaves arching-recurved, 40–50 cm long; sheath 5–6 cm long, 3–4 cm wide, brown-lepidote throughout; blade narrowly triangular, filiform-attenuate, 2 cm wide, covered with gray, appressed scales. inflorescence: peduncle curved-ascending, ca 10 cm long, 6 mm thick, green, glabrous, slightly angled; peduncle bracts densely imbricate, subfoliaceous; fertile part laxly once-branched from 10–15 arched spreading spikes, 20–25 cm long, 12–15 cm wide; primary bracts polystichous on the axis, erect, like the upper peduncle-bracts but with short or no blades, 2–3 cm long, shorter than the sterile base of the spike, green to reddish, glabrous or sparsely lepidote at apex; spikes linear, 9–10 cm long including the erect sterile bracteate base, 1 cm wide, the fertile, complanate part spreading; floral bracts imbricate but narrow and exposing the rachis at anthesis lanceolate, acute, 20 mm long, 12 mm wide, exceeding the sepals, faintly, carinate, even, reddish, lepidote at apex, otherwise glabrous. flowers: sepals free, acute, 16 mm long, 5 mm wide, ecarinate, thin, greenish, glabrous; petals naked, linear, 35 mm long, 5 mm wide, the blade violet with white at base. stamens exserted.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.