plant flowering over 2 m high. leaves rosulate, 65–90 cm long; sheath elliptic, 3 dm long, densely brown-lepidote; blade acuminate, 6 cm wide, glabrous. inflorescence: peduncle stout; peduncle bracts foliaceous, spinose-pungent, much exceeding the internodes, erect; fertile part once-branched, laxly thyrsoid, 5 dm long, 12 cm in diameter; axis minutely furfuraceous; primary bracts acuminate from an ovate base, pungent, much shorter than the branches; branches ascending, 13–23 cm long, lax, many-flowered, the sterile base very short; floral bracts ovate-elliptic, obtuse, much shorter than the sepals, scarcely or not at all carinate, coriaceous, nerved. flowers: pedicel stout, 5–10 mm long; sepals narrowly elliptic, obtuse, 16-–20 mm long, free, coriaceous, nerved; petals slightly exceeding the sepals, acute.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). in Flora Neotropica.