plant - short caulescent, flowering to 15 cm high; stem shorter than rosette, with very robust and abundantly branched roots; rosette upright to 20 cm high and 9 cm wide; all leaves spreading, the younger ones erect. leaves: sheath - indistinct, to 1.5 cm long, 1.2 cm wide, whitish both sides, dense appressed lepidote; blade - to 7 cm long, 1.3 cm wide, flat, thin, 3 angled towards the tip but not long attenuate, both sides very thick white lepidote; scales spreading with brownish centre. inflorescence - simple (? always), bent, to 9 cm long; peduncle - 4 cm long, erect to bent, totally covered by peduncle bracts whose base is subfoliate, the middle sheath enveloping the whole peduncle, grey lepidote; peduncle bracts the middle ones dirty red, naked, strongly veined, with membranous soon drying tips; the upper peduncle bracts gradually flow over to the flowers; spikes - complanate, 4 cm long, 0.6 cm wide, ca 5 flowered; floral bracts - erect, long lancelike, 2.5 cm long, acuminate, 6 mm wide, carmine-red, naked, strongly veined, ecarinate, much longer than the sepals and almost enclosing them; rachis - flexible, flattened on the side, green, naked. flowers - almost sessile, to 3.5 cm long; sepals - long lancelike, acuminate, the adaxial ones ecarinate, reddish, the bottom green, naked, with strong nerves when dry; petals - erect to 33 mm long, 3 mm wide, with spreading blunt tips, bright red blue/violet. stamens and style lobes enclosed; filament weakly plicate.Edited from : Rauh 1986c. Tillandsia muhrii Rauh spec.nov. 1) .