plant flowering ca 3 dm high. leaves rosulate, many, 35 cm long, cinereous-lepidote throughout; sheath broadly ovate, ca 5 cm long, dark castaneous; blade very narrowly triangular, attenuate, 3 cm wide at base, arched-recurving, subinvolute. inflorescence: peduncle erect, short, mostly concealed by the leaves; peduncle bracts densely imbricate, ovate with long recurving foliaceous blades, green; fertile part densely once-branched, slenderly fusiform, 13 cm long, 2 cm in diameter; primary bracts elliptic, ample, laminate or apiculate, 5 cm long, imbricate and covering the spikes except for the corollas, subchartaceous, rose, covered with fine appressed cinereous scales; spikes sessile, elliptic, complanate, 35 mm long, 15 mm wide, densely 5–7-flowered; rachis alate; floral bracts lanceolate, acute, to 23 mm long, exceeding the sepals, sharply carinate, densely cinereous-lepidote, thin, nerved toward apex. flowers subsessile; sepals oblong-elliptic, acute, 15 mm long, ecari¬nate, glabrous; petals tubular-erect, green,(pale blue – rauh’s book but in reality seem to be green with blue edges) bearing 2 acute scales near base. stamens exserted.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. (protologue) Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.