plant stemless, flowering 1–1.5 m high. leaves many in a crateriform rosette, rigid; sheath elliptic, ca 15 cm long; blade subspreading, ligulate, 5–8 dm long, acute, apiculate, 6–10 cm wide, green, concolorous, obscurely punctulate-lepidote. inflorescence: peduncle erect, exceeding the leaves; peduncle bracts exceeding the internodes, the lower with short linear apiculate blades, the upper acute or obtuse; fertile part once-branched from 3–5 branches, 5–7 dm long; primary bracts spreading or subspreading, clasping the sterile bases of the branches, broadly ovate, obtuse, apiculate, 5–6 cm long; spikes lateral 15–30 cm long with a sterile base 5–10 cm long usually bearing 2 bracts, 10–25-flowered, the terminal spike 40 cm long with a sterile base 25 cm long bearing 5–6 barely imbricate sterile bracts; rachis flexuous, angled, 3 mm in diameter, the internodes obconic; floral bracts secund, suborbicular, broadly ovate, or broadly elliptic, obtuse, 35–45 mm long, 3 times as long as the internodes, carinate toward apex, rigid, cinereous at anthesis, subglabrous outside, brown-punctulate inside. flowers: pedicel 5–7.5 mm long. flowers downwardly secund; sepals elliptic, obtuse, 15–20 mm long, much shorter than the bracts, coriaceous, dark brown, even; petals oblong, broadly acute or rounded, 30–35 mm long, sordid green, bearing 2 acuminate denticulate scales. stamens included.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.