plant forming a sub-bulbous rosette. leaves ca 50 cm long; sheath ample, inflated; blade ligulate, subrounded and acuminate terminating in a stout dark spine, nearly 9 cm wide, serrate with black antrorse curved spines to 6 mm long at the base, very closely appressed-lepidote beneath, less at the upper side. inflorescence: peduncle erect, stout, ca 45 cm long, 1 cm in diameter, ferruginous- or cinereous-tomentellous, pale cinereous-green; peduncle bracts (upper) erect or reflexed, elliptic, serrulate with black, antrorse spines, exceeding the internodes, divergent and exposing the peduncle in part, the upper massed below he inflorescence, 11 x 2.7 cm, lanceolate, acuminate and pungent, chartaceous, rose, densely but thin tomentose lepidote especially abaxially; fertile part densely cylindric, once-branched, 15–20 cm long, excluding petals 5 cm in diameter, appressed-ferruginous tomentellous throughout; axis slightly visible, stout, lanate lepidote; primary bracts short setiform from a narrow triangular base, 15 mm long, the lowest red with a black apical spine; branches suberect to spreading, 2–5-flowered, and a few sterile reduced bracts at the apex, short, often all fertile (sometimes the lowest one sterile) but especially the highest with the terminal bracts changed to elongate spines with pulvinate bases; rachis very short; floral bracts with the margins densely overlapping forming pushes around and clasping the flower free from the rachis, strongly asymmetric, much wider than long, 10 x 20–25 mm excluding the dark suberect spine of 13–21 mm long, very broadly ovate, entire, faintly nerved when fresh, densely cinereous tomentose. flowers 25 mm long without the petals; sepals strongly asymmetric, sub-free, faintly nerved, 15 x 9 mm, fleshy coriaceous with a one sided hyalin marginal wing (extension), ecarinate, minutely mucronate, cinereous-green, lepicote especially at the apex, minutely uncinate apiculate; petals spathulate from a linear-oblong claw, 40 x 5 mm, yellowish-green, bearing 2 denticulate ligulae at the base and 2 longitudinal callosities along the antepetalous filament; stemens emerging at the corolla throad, exceeding the pistil, 35 mm long. stamens: filament ribon like, flat to delated and sub-terete at distal end; anther dorsifixed slightly below the middle, linear, green, 5.5 mm long, curved at the base. pistil: ovary obconic, 4–6 x 6 mm, with shallow epigynous tube, ferruginous- or cinereous-tomentellous; style slender; stigma reaching halfway the anthers, dark green, linear-cuneate and conduplicate; ovules long caudate.Emended description : Gouda et al. 2018-2022. Encyclopaedia of bromeliads .