leaves to 1 m long, in a large erect basket, waxy glaucous beneath (! mcvaugh & koelz); blade ligulate, 9 cm wide, broadly subacute with a stout rigid mucro 6 mm long, glabrous above, covered beneath with white subappressed scales, laxly serrate with flat curved spines 3–4 mm long. inflorescence: peduncle decurved, ca 1 cm thick at apex, covered with persistent spreading coarse brilliantly white scales; peduncle bracts suberect, densely imbricate, lanceolate, involute-acuminate at apex, 23 cm long, subchartaceous, rose, glabrous above, covered with appressed white scales beneath; fertile part pendulous, 1 m long in fruit (! mcvaugh & koelz), once-branched toward base, racemose toward apex, its axes, ovaries, and sepals coarsely white-lepidote like the peduncle; primary bracts like the upper peduncle-bracts, much exceeding the 5 cm long laxly few-flowered branches; floral bracts linear, attenuate, about 10 mm long. flowers: pedicel spreading, straight, cylindric, to 15 mm long, 1 mm in diameter. flowers in line with the pedicels; sepals free or nearly so, subtriangular, 22 mm long, slightly asymmetric, serrulate toward apex, mucronate, ecarinate; petals imperfectly known, about 5 cm long, bearing 2 fimbriate scales at base. pistil: ovary globose, enlarged in fruit to 15 mm diameter; epigynous tube shallow; placentae elongate. fruits: seeds suboblong, 3 mm long, black, finely reticulate.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.