leaves with a dilated utricular oblong base three inches broad and a horny lorate cuspidate lamina, one foot and a half to two feet long, one inch and a half to two inches broad at the middle, with copious spreading lanceolate horny prickles one-eighth to one-sixth of an inch long. inflorescence: peduncle above a foot long, with several large lanceolate bract-leaves, the upper ones red. flowers in a dense oblong once-branched panicle six to eight inches long, three inches broadl, with spreading nearly straight square spicate branches, the lower ones six to eight-flowered, and subtended by red lanceolate bracts above an inch long; floral bracts deltoid-navicular, a quarter of an inch long inclusive of a short cusp; calys including ovary one-third of an inch long. pistil: ovary globose; sepals deltoid, as long as the ovary, not mucronate; petals crcam- white , twice as long as the sepals.Edited from : Baker 1879b. (protologue) A Synopsis of the Genus Aechmea, R. & P. .