plant stemless, flowering 0.6–2 m high. leaves 4–10 dm long; sheath elliptic, 1–3 dm long, ca 8 cm wide, subdensely lepidote with pale appressed brown-centered scales, green to pale brown toward the base, with broad hyalin margins; blade linear lingulate, canaculate in lower half, sub-rounded and apiculate or with a subulate apex (smith), 4–7 cm wide, sparcely pale brown punctulate lepidote especially abaxially. inflorescence: peduncle erect, 4–15 mm in diameter, glabrous, densely covered by bracts, only partly visible above; peduncle bracts closely imbricate, lanceolate, acute with a subulate apex, thin, nerved, green or dry at anthesis; fertile part laxly pyramidal or subcylindric , amply twice-branched, red except the petals; primary bracts like the peduncle-bracts, exceeding the bracteate sterile bases of the branches; secondary bracts half as long as the spikes or less; spikes subsessile, lanceolate, acute, strongly complanate, 4–14 cm long; floral bracts imbricate, hiding the rachis and sepals , oblong, sub-rounded then acute or weekly apiculate, 20–23 x 10 mm, slightly incurved, sharply carinate, thin coriaceous, nerved, adaxially glabrous, obscurely punctulate lepidote adaxilly. flowers subsessile; receptacle obconic, 3 mm long, cream colored, bi-carinate; sepals very narrowly ovate, 15–20 x 5.5 mm, acutish, cream colored, adaxial ones 1 mm connate, obtuse carinate, thin, especially at the margins, except at the keel; petals oblong-ligulate, broadened in lower half, 21–25 x 5.5 mm , rounded or weekly emarginate, 4 mm connate and adnate to the filaments, bearing two highly adnate ligulae at the base, white or yellow(smith); ligulae 6 mm long, free lobes rounded or weekly dentate. stamens included, ca 16 mm long; filament complanate, white, for 4 mm adnate to the petals, atenuate in upper half; anther pale yellow, 4 mm long, sub-dorsifixed with 1 mm long fre lobes; apiculate at apex. pistil 14 mm long, exceeded by the stamens, overay pale green, narrowly pyriform, 5 x 2 mm, attenuate from near the base, contracted in to the style; style slender, white; stigma short and wide, weekly conduplicate, erect, papillose, unequal in length.Emended description : Gouda et al. 2012-2017. Encyclopaedia of bromeliads .