plant flowering 34 cm high. leaves 25 cm long, obscurely and diffusely punctulate-lepidote; sheath ovate, inconspicuous, stramineous; blade linear, acuminate, flat, 15 mm wide, green above, pale reddish purple beneath. inflorescence: peduncle erect, very slender; peduncle bracts imbricate, tightly enfolding the peduncle, lanceolate, acuminate, membranaceous, purplish, glabrous; fertile part simple or branched of a few spikes , 13 cm long, estimated about 2 cm wide at anthesis, strongly complanate, glabrous; rachis slender, alate with the wings prolonged onto the bases of the bracts; floral bracts distichous, erect, at anthesis, narrowly lanceolate, acute, 24–27(–30) mm long, 9–12 mm wide, about 5 times as long as the internodes, carinate toward apex, membranaceous, nerved, red-purple with stramineous apices. flowers subsessile; sepals free, linear-lanceolate, acute, 27 mm long, thin, nerved; petals white, bearing 2 acute highly adnate scales. stamens included. fruits cylindric, shorter than the sepals.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.