leaves not seen. inflorescence: peduncle furnished with large lanceolate erect bract-leaves. flowers in a dense thyrsoid once-branched panicle six to eight inches long, three to four inches diameter, with crowded erecto-patent branches, subtended at the base by small deltoid bracts, each flower placed in a pocket formed by a square mucronate coriaceous navicular bract under half an inch long, entirely adnate to the rachis by its inner edges; calyx including ovary five-eighths to three-quarters of an inch long; sepals lanceolate cuspidate, twice as long as the glabrous ovary; petals lingulate, red purple, a quarter to one-third of an inch longer than the sepals.Edited from : Baker 1879b. (protologue) A Synopsis of the Genus Aechmea, R. & P. .