plant flowering to 45 cm high. leaves rosulate, arched-spreading, to 5 dm long; sheath broadly elliptic, to 15 cm long, densely and minutely castaneous-lepidote; blade ligulate, rounded and apiculate, 4–5 cm wide, obscurely lepidote, minutely serrulate. inflorescence: peduncle erect, 4 mm in diameter, covered with a dark brown wool; peduncle bracts broadly elliptic, apiculate, minutely serrulate, a single one near the base of the peduncle and the remainder massed beneath the inflorescence in a large cyathium; fertile part very densely once-branched, 5 cm long, 6–7 cm in diamter, densely dark brown-lanate; primary bracts broadly ovate, mucronate, shorter than the spikes, entire, nerved, membranaceous; spikes very densely few-flowered; floral bracts like the primary bracts but narrower, slightly exceeded by the sepals. flowers 3 cm long; sepals free, elliptic, slightly asymmetric, mucronate, 19 mm long; petals ligulate, rounded and apiculate, 20 mm long, blue, bearing 2 long folds that cover the filaments. stamens about equaling the petals. pistil: ovary ellipsoid, epigynous tube 2 mm long; placentae subapical; ovules obtuse.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.