plant flowering over 7 dm high. leaves about 15 in a funnelform rosette, to 33 cm long; sheath large, broadly elliptic, completely covered with minute appressed dark brown scales; blade ligulate, broadly acute and apiculate, 5 cm wide, dark green with a white powdery surface, nearly glabrous above, densely lepidote beneath. inflorescence: peduncle erect, 15–20 mm in diameter, glabrous; peduncle bracts erect, imbricate, the lower foliaceous, the upper broadly ovate with acuminate spirally recurved blades; fertile part very laxly compound from a few simple branches, 4 dm long; axis short, stout; primary bracts broadly ovate, 2–4 cm long; branches 2–3 dm long with the laxly bracteate sterile base much longer than the raceme; racemes dense at least before anthesis, to 7 cm long; floral bracts suborbicular, obtuse, 2 cm long, exceeding the sepals, ecarinate, thick, fleshy, glabrous, black, much wrinkled on drying. flowers distichous; sepals broadly ovate, obtuse, green; petals broadly elliptic, yellow, bearing 2 acute scales at base, exceeding the stamens at least before anthesis.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.