plant flowering 1 m high. leaves ca 8 in a crateriform rosette, to 6 dm long, covered with appressed, white scales; sheath elliptic, to 3 dm long; blade ligulate, acute, 6 cm wide, subdensely serrate with broad, black, spreading, 3 mm long spines. inflorescence: peduncle erect, sparsely pilose with finely stellate scales, soon glabrous; peduncle bracts erect, broadly elliptic, acute, pungent, spinulose-serrate, more or less glabrate, the middle and lower ones shorter than the internodes, the upper involucrate beneath the spike; fertile part simple, cylindric, 17 cm long, 4 cm in diameter, densely many-flowered; rachis minutely puberulous; floral bracts ovate, attenuate to a pungent spine, exceeding the ovary. flowers suberect to nearly spreading, sessile, to 50 mm long; sepals free, strongly asymmetric, 17 mm long with a brown divergent 3 mm spine, prominently nerved; petals subacute, to 42 mm long, lilac-rose, bearing 2 fimbriate scales at base. stamens slightly shorter than the petals, the second series nearly free; anther linear, 5 mm long. pistil: ovary subglobose, 10 mm long; epigynous tube urceolate, very large; placentae central; ovules ecaudate.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.