leaves 20–30 in a dense rosette, erect, to 1 m long; sheath ovate-elliptic, large, enŽtire, often maculate, lepidote beneath with minute gray-brown scales; blade ligulate, broadly acute and apiculate, 5–6 cm wide, coriaceous, rigid, subglabrous, dark brownŽish-green especially beneath, densely serrate with antrorse curved spines 0.5 mm long, concolorous. inflorescence: peduncle 30–50 cm high, glabrous; peduncle bracts few, like the primary bracts and massed at the top of the peduncle; fertile part compound, rather many-flowered; primary bracts broadly ovate or suborbicular with a lanceolate blade, to 14 cm long, completely concealing the flowers, rose-purple, densely serrate with stout antrorse curŽved spines, ending in a stiff spine, glabrous; floral bracts ovate-elliptic, acute, covering the lower third or quarter of the sepal, serrulate toward apex, carinate, membranaŽceous, sparsely lepidote. flowers sessile, ca 6 cm long; sepals subsymmetric, ovate-Želliptic, acute, mucronulate, 23 mm long, connate for 8 mm, pale green, glabrous; petals ca 4 cm long, high-connate, obtuse, pale blue, drying whitish. stamens included. pistil: ovary subovoid, glabrous.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.