plant flowering 5–9 dm high. leaves forming a slenderly crateriform rosette, 3 dm long; sheath elliptic, large, densely and minutely brown-appressed-lepidote; blade narrowly subtriangular, long-attenuate then narrowly rounded and apiculate, nearly flat, ca 3 cm broad at base, densely cinereous-lepidote, not at all spotted, suffused with violet especially toward apex. inflorescence: peduncle erect, rather slender; peduncle bracts erect, the lower foliaceous and much exceeding the internodes, the upper ovate, apiculate and about equaling the internodes; fertile part simple, laxly few-flowered, 12–19 cm long; rachis flexuous; floral bracts more or less secund with the flowers, ovate, acute, only slightly carinate toward apex, 24 mm long, somewhat longer than the internodes, distinctly shorter than the sepals, fleshy-coriaceous, coarsely lepidote or rarely becoming glabrous. flowers divergent-secund; pedicel 6 mm long, stout; sepals oblong, obtuse, 30 mm long, 8.5 mm wide; petals and stamens unknown. fruits slenderly cylindric, acute, 7 cm long, seeds with a pale ferrugineous or white coma.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.