plant stemless, flowering to 30 cm high, leaves forming a dense rosette ca as long as the inflorescence. leaves: sheath distinct, long ovate, 5 cm long, 4 cm wide, dark brown violet, white at the base, both sides dense appressed lepidote leaf blade narrow triangular acuminate, ca 20 cm long, straight spreading outwards, next to sheath 1.5 cm wide, weakly channelled, top side green, glabrous, underneath with dense silvery white scales. inflorescence: peduncle erect, round, 5 mm thick, 15 cm long, lepidote, covered densely by peduncle bracts; peduncle bracts almost leaflike, erect, with long filiform blades, lepidote, tip red; fertile part short cylindric, 19 cm long, 3 cm wide, once-branched, exceeding the leaves, ca 10 spikes; primary bracts longish ovate, red, white lepidote, the bottom ones with filiform blades, the upper ones acuminate, the sheath of the lower bracts a little shorter than the spike, while the blade greatly exceeds spike subsessile to short stemmed, (4mm), ca 3 cm long, 1.5 cm wide, complanate, polystichous, 4 - 6 flowered, with 1 - 2 sterile floral bracts; rachis thin, green, lepidote, visible at anthesis. flowers erect, subsessile; floral bracts 20 mm long, 10 mm wide, erect, imbricate, exceeds the sepal, sharply carinate, red, at base green, densely white lepidote, sepal long lancelike, acuminate, 16 mm long, thin, light green, glabrous, light red at tip, the adaxial pair carinate, free; petals ligulate, erect, forming a tube, hardly spreading, 30 mm long, violet, the base white. stamens and style widely exceeding, filaments white, pollen yellow, style white with weak yellowish lobes, exceeds the stamens by 7mm.Edited from : Rauh 1987b. Bromelienstudien (Mitteilung 19). I. Neue und wenig bekannte Arten aus Peru und anderen Ländern .