plant flowering about 1 m high (?). leaves 6 dm long, wholly covered by a membrane of pale fused scales; sheath conspicuous, nearly as long as the blade, elliptic; blade ligulate, broadly rounded and apiculate, 9.5 cm wide, subdensely serrate with dark teeth 2 mm long. inflorescence: peduncle erect, sulcate, white-flocculose, becoming glabrous; peduncle bracts (upper) lanceolate, acuminate to a pungent apex, 15–16 cm long, serrulate, subchartaceous when dry, rose, flocculose at base; fertile part laxly once-branched, cylindric, acuminate, 4 dm long, 10–12 cm in diameter, white-flocculose; primary bracts lowest ones like the peduncle-bracts, much exceeding the axillary branches, changing abruptly to primary bracts exactly like the floral bracts in size and shape; branches spreading, simple, geniculate, slender, 2–4-flowered, often bearing a tuft of sterile bracts at apex; floral bracts narrowly triangular, subulate-acuminate, 8–10 mm long. flowers sessile, spreading, soon glabrous; sepals nearly free, strongly asymmetric, 10 mm long exclusive of the 5–7 mm long mucro; petals 15 mm long, red-purple when dry, bearing 2 lacerate scales well above the base. stamens included. pistil: ovary ellipsoid; epigynous tube 2 mm high; placentae subapical; ovules long-caudate.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.