plant with large rosettes, reproducing vegetatively by stolons; stolons (5-)12–15 cm long, flattened, covered by distichous sheaths. leaves 16–18 per rosette, 50–60 cm long, 2- 2.5 mm wide, covered both sides with appressed brown-centered cinereous scales; sheath elliptic, ample, 10–18 cm long, 6–5 cm wide, dark castaneous, entire except near the apex; blade narrowly triangular, attenuate, 25–40 mm wide, laxly serrate with antrorse dark spines 1–5 mm long. inflorescence compound, many flowered, 5 cm diameter; primary bracts broadly elliptic, mucronate, 5–6 cm long, exceeding the sepals, subdensely brown- lepidote, basally rose (!wurdack); floral bracts elliptic, acute, pungent, about equaling the primary bracts, lepidote. flowers: sepals strongly asymmetric, acute, pungent, 32 mm long, connate for 6–7 mm, lepidote. pistil: ovary slenderly cylindric, 32 mm long, merging with the short, obscure pedicel.Edited from : Ramirez 1991. Systematic Revision of Neoregelia subgenus Hylaeaicum (Bromeliaceae) .