plant epiphytic, flowering ca 30 cm tall. leaves ca 10, rosulate, suberect-arcuate, chartaceous, forming at base a narrowly funnelform rosette; sheath elliptic, ca 10 x 5 mm, subdensely and minutely lepidote, adaxially slightly purple; blade linear, 23–35 x 2–2.5 cm, glabrescent, green, apex acuminate and tenuously apiculate, margins laxly and minutely spinulose, spines ca 0.5 nun long. inflorescence: peduncle erect; slender, ca 18 cm long, ca 0.3 cm , in diameter, sparsely white-lanate; peduncle bracts narrowly ovate, acuminate, ca 28 x 10 cm, stramineous, tenuously papyraceous and nerved, remotely spinulose near the apex, white-lanate near the base, shorter than the internodes; fertile part shortly paniculate, subdensely once-branched, erect, ca 11 x 6 cm, rachis slender, sparsely white-lanate, reddish; primary bracts lanceolate, slenderly acuminate, 10–20 x 5–10 mm, entire, membranaceous, spreading; whitish, white-lanate, exceeding the sterile, ebracteate basal peduncle; branches ca 8, suberect to spreading, 30–40 mm long; ca 15 mm in diameter, 10 to 15-flowered, basal peduncle slender, 6–10 x 2- 3 mm; floral bracts ovate; acuminate-caudate, membranaceous, stramineous, nerved, corrugate toward base, entire, glabrescent, shorter to equaling the ovary, ecarinate; ca 4 x 1.5 mm. flowers sessile, ca 10 mm long, slightly fragrant, densey to subdensely arranged; sepals strongly asymmetrical with the lateral membranaceous wing subacute and distinctly surpassing the midnerve, mucronulate, ca 3 x 1.5 mm, connate at base for ca 0.5 mm, whitish-green, ecarinate; petals subspatulate, rounded, ca 6.5 x 2 mm., free, greenish, subspreading at anthesis, naked but bearing 2 distinct; longitudinal callosities. stamens: filament ca 5 mm long, the antesepalous ones free, the antepetalous ones basally adnate to the petals for 1/2 of its length; anther ca 1.5 mm long, dorsifixed near the middle, base obtuse; apex conspicuously apiculate. pistil: stigma conduplicatespiral, elliptic; blade ca 0.5 mm long, green, very shortly crenulate; ovary ca 4 mm long; epigynous tube inconspicuous; placentation apical; ovules obtuse.Edited from : Harvard Pap. Bot.. (protologue) .