leaves 1 m or longer; sheath very large, brown, very densely and minutely brown -punctulate-lepidote; blade broadly rounded and emarginate with a subpungent apiculus, to 1 dm wide, rigidly coriaceous, soon glabrous above, densely and minutely pale-lepidote below, serrulate with teeth 1 mm long. inflorescence: peduncle shorter than the leaves, green, glabrous; peduncle bracts entire, coriaceous, pungent, floccose; fertile part once-branched, of 15–40 spikes; axis floccose; primary bracts like the peduncle-bracts, equaling or slightly shorter than the spikes; spikes spreading, narrowly ellipsoid to cylindric, 3–5 cm long, three times as long as their stipes, glabrous; floral bracts very broadly ovate, obtuse with a minute mucro, strongly convex, rigid, even, dark-brown, shiny, shorter than the sepals. flowers 10–12 mm long without the petals; sepals strongly asymmetric, emarginate, minutely mucronate, of the same texture and surface as the bracts; ovules obtuse.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.