plant up to 50 cm high. leaves 15–25 forming an exceedingly dense bulbose rosette; blade indistinct from the sheath, up to 36 cm long, gradually narrowing from the base, all to mostly channelled, inside nearly glabrous, outside very densely appressed lepidote. inflorescence: peduncle evident, slender, equalling the leaves, laxly furnished with bracts; peduncle bracts the middle sheaths with not any or very little blade, broad elliptic, internodes barely equal; fertile part simple, laxly distichous pinnate, 10–20 flowered, up to 25 cm long, much exceding the leaves; rachis geniculate floral bracts erect, barely imbricate, leathery, not incurved, not keeled, the back densely lepidote, to 32 mm long, much exceeding the sepals. flowers erect, to 65 mm long, ( zygomorphic according to l.h.) sepals free, leathery, ovate-lanceolate, acute, a little lepidote, to 24 mm long; petals beautiful pink ( purple- red, according to l.h.) to 55 mm long, tubular, erect, the tip spreading, much shorter than the stamens.Edited from : Mez 1935. Bromeliaceae (part 1-4) in Engler, A. (ed) Das Pflanzenreich.