leaves 20 or more in a short rosette, lanceolate from an ovate base, 3 ft; long, 3–4 in; broad low down, green on the face, thinly white-lepidote not banded on the back, narrowed to a deltoid-cuspidate apex, the marginal prickles small, deltoid, ascending. inflorescence: peduncle stout, erect, ½ ft; long; bract-leaves pale, scariose, ascending, those at the base of the spike ovate; fertile part a dense oblong capitulum ½ft; long, 3 in; diam; floral bracts ovate-cuspidate, entire, greenish brown, ascending, an inch long. pistil: ovary with calyx a little longer than the bract. flowers: sepals ovate, distinctly mucronate; petals ½ in; longer than the calyx, violet-blue, spreading only at the tip.Edited from : Baker 1889. (protologue) Handbook of the Bromeliaceae .