plant stemless, flowering to 80 cm high. leaves very numerous, forming a flat extended rosette of 70 cm diameter( fig; 10, left) sheaths indistinct, to 15 cm long and 6 cm wide, light green, only at the base underneath dark brown, occasionally red long-striped; blade narrow ligulate, short acuminate, to 35 cm long and 4 cm wide, upper side dull -, underneath light green and scattered small scales, through a shining light with tender darker cross-nerves. inflorescence: peduncle erect, to 50 cm long, 1 cm thick, glabrous, green; peduncle bracts basal ones subfoliate, the upper ones with long, at the base a brown sheath and short, bent over blade, much longer than the internodes, green, glabrous, underneath close to the edges with wine-red, tender cross-nerves; fertile part densely once-branched, almost digitate, (fig; 10 middle), to 10 cm long and 6 cm in diameter, with ± 7 side spikes; these only a little exceeded by the end spike; primary bracts basal ones longer than the spike, green, with large sheath and short blade, the middle and upper ones wide-oval, only tipped, at the top green, leathery brown at the base, much shorter than the spike; spikes cylindrical, acuminate, to 4 cm long and 2 cm thick, with very short, thick, flattened stem; above this a 2 keeled, appressed, wide-oval, leathery-brown peduncle bract. flowers 9–15, densely polystichous, lively green, developing at night, with a garlic smell; floral bracts, 10–15 mm long, 8 mm wide, wide-oval, at the top green, dull, at the base leathery brown, with a shallow depression on the upper face, at anthesis shorter than the sepals; sepals 18–20 mm long, 7 mm connate, blunt to short tipped, light leathery brown, white towards the base, the adaxial pair keeled; petals narrow lanceolate, 25 mm long, with blunt, somewhat cucullate tip, intensive green, white toward the base. stamens and style enclosed ( fig; 10, right).Edited from : Rauh 1979b. (protologue) Bromelienstudien (Mitteilung 9). I. Neue und wenig bekannte Arten aus Peru und anderen Ländern .