plant known only from fragments but probably flowering nearly 2 m high. leaves to 38 cm long, laxly vestite with minute dark appressed scales throughout; sheath ample, nearly concolorous with the blades; blade ligulate, subrounded and apiculate, 45 mm wide, green above, pale green beneath, finely purple-maculate toward base. inflorescence: peduncle straight, 12 mm thick at apex, glabrous at least with age; peduncle bracts (upper) erect, imbricate, broadly ovate; fertile part laxly once-branched, glabrous at least with age; primary bracts like the upper peduncle-bracts, cuspidate-acuminate, shorter than the bracteate sterile bases of the branches; branches curved-spreading, to 45 cm long, densely secundflowered; rachis flexuous, narrowly alate; floral bracts secund with the flowers, broadly ovate-triangular, obtuse, obtusely carinate, 3 cm long, exceeding the sepals and more than twice as long as the internodes, coriaceous, even, pale brown. flowers: pedicel stout; sepals broadly elliptic, obtuse, 2 cm long, coriaceous, even, ecarinate. fruits stout, acute, beaked, 25 mm long.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.