plant epiphytic, stoloniferous. leaves coriaceous, forming a narrow funnel form rosette, much exceeding the inflorescence, densely covered beneath with finely appressed cinereous scales; sheath broadly elliptic, 10–13 x 3.5–4 cm, purple adaxially; blade linear, acute with a thick pungent apical cusp, 20–47 x 2.5 cm, flat, laxly serrulate with teeth 0.5 mm long, densely cinerous-lepidote above, glabrescent with age. inflorescence: peduncle erect, slender, ca 20 cm long, ca 0.5 cm in diameter, densely white-floccose when young; peduncle bracts linear-lanceolate, acuminate, membranaceous, erect, equaling to exceeding the internodes, exposing the peduncle, the lowest serrulate; fertile part simple, laxly to subdensely cylindrical, 5–8 cm long, white-flocculose; floral bracts narrowly triangular-lanceolate and acuminate to broadly ovate and acute, thin, yellowish, the lowest about equaling the sepals, the others much shorter, triangulate, acute, ca 3 mm long. flowers ca 18 mm long, sessile, polystichously arranged, divergent; sepals subreniform, strongly asymmetric, the lateral wing rounded, 4 mm long exclusive of the slender 1 mm long mucro, ca 5 mm wide, connate for nearly half their length, ecarinate, bright yellow; petals narrowly obovate, emarginate, suberect at anthesis, 9 x 4 mm, subfree, bearing 2 lacerate appendages at base, as well as 2 conspicuous callosities which equals the filaments, white. stamens included; filament the epipetalous ones shortly adnate to the petals, the episepalous ones free; anther narrowly ellipsoid, base obtuse, apex apiculate, ca 3 mm long, fixed near the middle. pistil: style slightly surpassing the anthers; stigma conduplicate-spiral, narrowly ellipsoid, white, blades with subentire margins; ovary broadly obconic, terete, 5–6 mm long, ca 4 mm in diameter, bright yellow; placentae subcentral to apical; ovules obtuse to apiculate; epigynous tube ca 1.5 mm long.Edited from : Leme 1997g. (protologue) Rediscovering Aechmea bicolor .