plant stemless, flowering 7 dm high. leaves forming an obconical vase, 6 dm long; sheath ovate, 20 cm long, 15 cm wide, coriaceous, all dark purple and densely punctulate-lepidote; blade linear-lanceolate, narrowed to a black rigid spine, 40 cm long, 55 mm wide, stiff coriaceous, green, inconspicuously white-lepidote, serrate with dark purple rigid spines 7 mm long. inflorescence: peduncle erect, 50 cm long, 13 mm thick, castaneous, glabrous; internodes 3 cm long; peduncle bracts closely imbricate, ovate, acuminate into a rigid terete dark purple glabrous spine, entire, obscurely white-lepidote; fertile part subglobose, 10 cm long, typically of 6 spikes; primary bracts much shorter than the spikes; spikes fasciculate, sub cylindric, 8 cm long, 25 mm thick, dense; floral bracts imbricate, ovate with a 3–4 mm rigid mucro, 35 mm long, 20 mm wide, rigid-coriaceous, nerved, carinate, the upper half dark purple, the lower castaneous, white lepidote. flowers polystichous, sessile, 45 mm long, erect; sepals exserted, slightly connate, strongly asymmetric, mucronate, 25 mm long, green, white-lepidote; petals linear, 30 mm long, violet, bearing 2 denticulate scales at base. stamens included; filament highly adnate to petals; anther dorsifixed, 5.5 mm long. pistil: ovary trigonous 15 mm long; epigynous tube 2 mm long; placentae apical; ovules few, long-caudate.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.