plant flowering 4 dm high. leaves over 6 dm long; sheath small, elliptic, inconspicuous; blade narrowly elliptic, broadly acute and apiculate, subpetiolate, 75–85 mm wide, thin, glabrous above, covered beneath with pale appressed scales, minutely serrulate at the base and apex. inflorescence: peduncle erect, slender; peduncle bracts strict, densely imbricate, narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, entire, green, pale-lepidote beneath; fertile part simple, dense, sub cylindric, 6 cm long, nearly 4 cm in diameter, much enlarged in fruit, bearing a small coma at the apex; floral bracts narrowly triangular, pungent, 12 mm long. flowers sessile; sepals strongly asymmetric, 1 cm long, bearing a spreading brown mucro 4 mm long, sparsely white-lepidote; petals obtuse and apiculate, slightly exserted, bearing large scales. pistil: ovary ellipsoid; placentae apical.Edited from : Smith & Downs 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae) in Flora Neotropica.