; 0 caudex erect, ca 15 cm long. leaves numerous, ca 65 cm long; sheath elliptic, 10 cm long, entire, dark castaneous, covered with whitish transparent appressed scales; blade linear, acuminate, 15 mm wide, densely but inconspicuously appressed-lepidote above, sparsely so beneath, at base subdensely serrate with dark straight or curved spines 5 mm long, involute when dry. inflorescence single (?), few-flowered; the outer bracts broadly ovate, acute or the lowest laminate, exceeding the sepals, entire, covered with conspicuous white appressed scales; floral bracts broadly elliptic, acute, mucronate, shorter than the sepals, densely pale-lepidote. flowers: sepals free, slightly asymmetrical, subtriangular, acuminate, mucronate, 25 mm long, alate-carinate, green except the castaneous base, glabrous or nearly so; petals 35 mm long, naked; pollen grains spherical, smooth.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.