plant very short caulescent, when plant is not blooming and/or sterile, rosette erect and up to 30 cm high; when blooming the rosette flattens and the heigh is about 8 cm, propagating by short basal offsets. leaves 7–12, spreading to arched-recurving, suberect, forming an open, round rosette; sheath inconspicuous, entire, glabrous adaxially, densely white-lepidote; blade linear-lanceolate, long-acuminate, caudate, 20–30 cm long, 1.3–2.2 cm wide, slightly narrowed at the base, when mature and mostly in the periphery of the rosette, canaliculate and with a thick median channel, green, abaxially densely white-lepidote, sometimes brown-lepidote, adaxially white-lepidote but less dense, margins slightly undulate and very densely and uniformly serrulate, spines antrorse, ca 0.5 mm long. inflorescence very slightly elongate, many flowered, 1.5–2.5 cm long, 1.5–3 cm in diameter; peduncle 1.5–2 cm long, evident; primary bracts foliaceous (less succulent than older leaves), cucullate at the base where it encloses the inflorescence, acute and acuminate, 10–20 mm long, 9–13 mm wide, margins serrate, the scars of the spines of the outer leaf evident, the size of the most peripheral is almost the same as the outer leaves, the inner ones are very small; fascicles 7 to 10, the basal ones pulvinate, ca 20 mm long (excluding the petals), ca 20 mm wide, with 3–10 flowers*" floral bracts ovate-triangulate, narrowly acute and strongly carinate, 14 mm long, 5–9 mm wide, cucullate, oblicuous, acute and apiculate, serrate. flowers sessile, 28 cm long, slightly fragrant; sepals oblong-elliptic, acute and apiculate, 11–17 mm long, connate by ca 3–6(–9) mm, free lobes 3–4 mm wide, entire, green, coarsely white-lepidote toward apex, carinate (mainly the adaxial ones), tetranervate, with all nerves concentrated in the middle area of the blade; petals suborbiculate to wide-elliptic, rounded, 18–24 mm long, connate by 10 mm, (4)5–10 mm wide, white, free lobes apically attenuate, acute, exceeding the stamens but subspreading at anthesis and exposing them, without evident calli. stamens: filament 15 mm long, equally adnate to the petals for the length of its tube; anther linear, ca 4 mm long, fixed near 1/3 of its length about the base, base sagittate, apex obtuse; epigynous tube lacking to 1 mm long. pistil: ovary ca 5 mm long, trigonous, white; placentation apical; ovules near spherical, obtuse, ca 20–30 in each locule; stigma simple erect, white, with stylar lobes suborbicular, erect to slightly recurved at apex, 2 mm long, 1.2 mm wide, not contorted nor spiral, margins weakly crenulate. fruits unknown; seeds unknown.Edited from : Ramirez 1996. Systematics, phylogeny and chromosome number evolution in Cryptanthus (Bromeliaceae) .