plant epiphytic, acaulous, to 25 cm tall when flowering. leaves few, in a crateriform rosette; blade 10 5–16 x 2• 5 — 3• 5 cm, ligulate, obtuse, apiculate, laxly antrorse-serrate with teeth up to 1 mm long, green with margins purple beneath, minutely sunken-adpressed-lepidote on both surfaces, microscopically lanate beneath especially towards apex, strongly channelled, narrowing at base into sheath; sheath 5 - 6 x 3 - 3 5 cm, broadly ovate, entire. inflorescence: peduncle erect, slender, glabrous, dark purple; peduncle bracts to 1–8 cm long, shorter than internodes, amplexicaul, lanceolate, membranaceous; fertile part c; 12 cm long, laxly once-branched, glabrous; inflorescence* bracts up to 2 x 0–5 cm, membranaceous, lanceolate, acute; branches short, 3 - 3 5 cm long, 4–5-flowered; floral bracts reduced to black-brown scales c; 0 1 mm long, hidden by base of calyx, or absent. flowers sessile, spreading, upwardly directed; sepals 4 - 5 mm, connate in lower third, unarmed, green, margin hyaline, irregular, winged; petals 15 x 3–3 5 mm, spathulate, lilac-blue, narrowed to a white basal claw, recurved at anthesis. pistil: ovary 4 - 5 mm long, indistinctly shallowly ridged, green below, paler above.Edited from : Kew Bull.. (protologue) .