plant flowering when about 28 cm tall; sparse rosettes –30 cm in diam; stem –4 cm long, 2 cm in diam; in age proliferating by short, subterraneous –4 cm long and 0.6 cm thick stolons; roots horizontally branched; 10–13 leaves. leaves: sheath narrower than the blades, –0.7 cm long, 19 mm wide, adaxially polished white-greenish; blade triangular lanceolate, margins wavy between teeth, recurved, concave, coriaceous, up to 19 cm long, –2.8 cm wide at the base, rusty orangish-brown color, slightly green near the base, adaxially and abaxially densely coated by whitish-gray trichomes; margins laxly spinose; teeth 5–11 mm apart, dark-brown to blackish-brown with a brilliant apex, polished, in the lower part of the blade mostly retrorse, but for the most part up to the apex predominately straight to antrorse, uncinate, hard, pungent, claw-like recurved, –4.5 mm long, more or less triangular, –2 mm wide at the base. inflorescence: peduncle –8.5 cm long, 0.7 mm thick, laxly covered by a coat of coarse, linear, white trichomes, not completely covering the peduncle's surface; peduncle* with 7–9 foliose bracts, 14.3–8.5 cm long; fertile part of inflorescence slightly erect, 12–16 cm long, at the connection with the peduncle 0.6–0.8 cm thick, covered by coarse coat of white trichomes; about 11- 13 spikes, subsessile, fasciclelike; fascicle bracts in the lower part of the inflorescence 72 mm long, towards the inflorescence's apex reducing gradually to a length of 9 mm, foliose; fascicles with 7–9 flowers; floral bracts triangular-lanceolate, succulent, carinate, up to 13 mm long, at the base –5 mm wide, distinctly nerved on both sides dark-purple to dark grape-violet; margins serrate with short blackish grape-violet teeth, lower teeth recurved downwards, upper teeth straight. flowers sessile, diurnal, at anthesis –9 mm in diameter, receptacle tubular –3 mm diameter, white-greenish; sepals triangular-lanceolate, succulent, carinate, abaxially distinctly sulcate, –11 mm long; at the base –4 mm wide, brilliant dark purple, margins thin and whitish; petals linear-spatulate, –10 mm long, 3 mm wide, white with a slight greenish tone, apex spatulate, cucullate, curved, –3.8 mm wide, white. stamens filaments linear, in the lower part (about 4 mm) closely adnate to the hypanthium, in the upper part 4–6 mm long freestanding, white with a slight greenish tone, at the highest point where connected with the hypanthium a tuft of white hairs (trichomes) close to the nectar chamber; anther –2.3 mm long, yellow-greenish, style and stigma complex –13 mm long, at the base white, towards the stigma yellow-greenish, stigma lobes 1.6 mm long, flanged, yellow-greenish. pistil: ovary heart shaped, 1.5 mm long. fruits capsular, globular-flattened, –5 mm diameter; light green with persistent flower remains; seeds brown, irregular kidney- or pear-shaped, –1.8 mm long, 1 mm thick, testa papillose.Edited from : Braun & Esteves 2010. (protologue) Succulent and Xeromorphic Bromeliads of Brazil - PART 7 Orthophytum toscanoi ssp atropurpureum .