plant lithophytic, forming mats, 9 cm high when flowering, short-caulescent, propagating by elongated basal stolons; stolons ca 10 cm x 3 mm, covered by reduced light brown, narrowly triangular cataphylls, ca, 1.5 cm, leaves ca 30, suberect to spreading, arcuate-¬recurved toward apex at anthesis. leaves sheath, widely ovate-elliptic, 1–1.5 x 2–2.5 cm, glabrous, lustrous, pale yellow becoming greenish yellow and spinulose toward apex; blade narrowly triangular, apex soft, filiform-caudate, (8.5-)12–21 x (0,6)1–1.7 cm, green, slightly canaliculate toward base, thinner in texture and nearly flat toward apex, abaxially distinctly nerved, subdensely to densely white-lepidote, tri¬chomes asymmetrical, arranged along the midnerves, not obscuring leaf color, adaxially trichomes forming white cross-bands, margins spinulose, spines triangu¬lar-uncinate, distinctly antrorse, yellowish green toward apex, 0.5–1 mm long, 2–4 mm apart; inflores¬cence sessile, pseudosimple to inconspicuously bi¬pinnate, inconspicuously subcorymbose, sunk in the center of the rosette, ca 4 x 3 cm, ca 20-flowered; primary bracts foliaceous, gradually reduced in size inward, 7–13 x 1.5–2 cm, becoming yellowish green or reddish green et anthesis; fascicles ca 13, in¬conspicuous, 1- to 2-flowered, ca 4.3 x 1 cm, compressed, nearly sessile, peduncle complanate, ca 1 x 5 mm; floral bracts narrowly triangular, apex acuminate with a recurved apiculus, 11 x 5–6 mm, membranaceous, glabrous, finely nerved, entire, sharply carinate. flowers 38–40 mm, sessile or nearly so, odorless or with soft sweet smell, diurnal; sepals narrowly triangular-lanceolate, apex acuminate-attenuate, 14–15 x 3–4 mm, connate at base for ca 1 mm, symmetric or nearly so, glabrescent, finely nerved, erect, white, membranaceous, entire, sharply carinate; corolla erect and tubular at anthesis, petals subspatulate, apex subobtuse and inconspicuously emarginate, 30–32 x 10 mm, free, glabrous, white, bearing at base 2 sublinear-lanceolate, acuminate to irregularly bidentate appendages, 3–4 x 1 mm. stamens included, filaments 16–20 mm, terete, white, free or nearly so, anthers oblong, ca 2 mm, base slightly sagittate, apex minutely apiculate, dorsifixed near the base; pollen grains single, ellipsoid, monocolpate, exine reticulate, ca 60 x 22 μm. pistil: ovary obovate, trigonous, 6 x 4-¬5 mm, white, glabrous, epigynous tube ca1mm, placentation axile; style included, white, distinctly surpassing the anthers, 28–30 mm; stigma conduplicate, weakly spiral, 2–3 mm, white, inconspicuously papillose; ovules numerous, obtuse, restricted to upper 1/3 of the ovary locule. fruits white becoming green toward apex, fleshy, trigonous, ca 8 x 4 mm; seeds ca 10, elliptic to ovoid, ca 2 x 0.8 mm, yellowish white.Edited from : Novon 17: 130-134.. (2007)