plant flowering about 4 dm high. leaves rosulate, to 3 dm long, minutely punctulate-lepidote, marked below with transverse dark brown bands; sheath large, elliptic; blade ligulate, acute, 3 cm wide or slightly wider at the base. inflorescence: peduncle erect, slender , glabrous; peduncle bracts imbricate, acuminate from an ovate base, inflated, pale brown, lepidote toward apex but elsewhere glabrous, nearly even; fertile part simple laxly few-flowered; floral bracts broadly ovate, the lower ones acuminate, to 43 mm long, exceeding the sepals, not at all carinate nor imbricate, becoming secund with the flowers; rachis slender, flexuous. flowers secund; pedicel 5 mm long; sepals broadly elliptic, obtuse, 17 mm long, glabrous, faintly nerved. fruits slenderly ellipsoid, 3 cm long.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.