plant acaulescent, flowering to ca 1.5 m long, with a very broad, 45–65 cm tall (ca; 140 cm wide) funnelform rosette, of about 15 leaves. leaves thin-coriaceous, 60–80 cm long, exceeded by the peduncle; sheath ample, tapering into the blade, ovate or elliptic, slightly inflated, 17–22 x 10–16 cm, with membranaceous margins, densely appressed-lepidote with minute pale-brown scales on both sides, whitish toward the apex; blade spreading, slightly arching, ligulate, 40–58 x 7–11 cm, rounded, then triangular attenuate and long-acuminate, obscurely appressed¬lepidote on both sides, pale-green (?). inflorescence erect, simple, laxly or subdigitately compound of 2–4(–9) spikes; peduncle ca 60 cm long, 1–1.5 cm in diam., glabrous, exposed by the upper bracts; peduncle bracts erect, the lower ones foliaceous and densely imbricate, the upper ones more broadly ovate and acuminate or caudate, about equaling the inter¬nodes or exceeding them by the elongate apex, but then so narrow as to expose the peduncle in part, subdensely and very minutely lepidote, green to purple; axis short or ample, stout, flexuous, subterete; primary bracts as the upper peduncle bracts, spreading with, and much shorter than the peduncle; peduncle* spreading, 7–13 cm long, prophyllate and densely bracteate; peduncle bracts* as the floral bracts, exceeding the internodes, but so narrow as to expose the peduncle in part; racemes slightly arching, asymmetrical, 18–32 cm long, subdensely and distichously 7–17-flowered, with one or a few reduced sterile bracts at the apex; rachis exposed at anthesis, distinctly geniculate, sub-quadrangular; floral bracts secund with, and clasping the flowers, coriaceous, with even sur¬face, broadly ovate, inflated-convex, 2–3 cm long, equaling or exceeding the internodes, much exceeded by the sepals, obtuse or acutish, slightly apiculate, bluntly carinate at the apex, subglabrous, yellow-green(?). flowers strongly downward secund, distinctly pedicellate; pedicel stout, 0.5–1 cm long (including receptacle); sepals coriaceous, with even sur¬face, elliptic, 2.1–2.9 cm long, with broad membranaceous margins, broadly obtuse, incurved at the extreme apex, free, ecarinate, obscurely lepidote inside, glabrous outside; petals recurving, subcoriaceous, 4–4.5 cm long, cream-colored, bearing two irregularly dentate ligules at the base. stamens about equaling the pistil, shorter than the petals, filaments firm, subterete, slightly dilated toward the apex, anthers dorsifixed (near¬ly at the base), linear, ca 12 mm long, the small basal lobes and apex ob¬tuse. pistil: ovary ovoid, ca 8 mm long, contracted into the subslender style, stigma subcyathiform. fruits broadly cylindric, 4–4.5 cm long, taper¬ing from about the middle toward the apex, short-beaked.Edited from : Gouda 1987. Bromeliaceae (subfamily Tillandsioideae) in Görts-van Rijn, A.R.A. (ed.) Flora of the Guiana\'s Series A: Phanerogams.