Monographs Details:
Authority:

Smith, Lyman B. & Downs, Robert J. 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 14 (3): 1493-2142. (Published by NYBG Press)
Family:

Bromeliaceae
Description:

Description - Plant flowering to 1 m high. Leaves to 1.3 m long, densely appressed-lepidote throughout; sheaths ample, brown; blades ligulate, acute or rounded with a pungent terminal dark cusp, 5-10 cm wide, laxly and finely antrorse-serrate. Scape erect, slender, light-floccose becoming glabrous; scape-bracts erect, lanceolate, attenuate, entire or sparsely serrulate, chartaceous, bright red. Inflorescence ample, lax; primary bracts like the scape-bracts, much shorter than the 9-25 cm long laxly polystichous-flowered axillary branches. Floral bracts narrowed from a broadly ovate base into a finely subulate point, about equaling the ovary; flowers 12-18 mm long. Sepals strongly asymmetric with a large suborbicular wing, 2-7 mm long without the mucro, glabrous; petals 7-10 mm long, appendaged; anthers mucronate; pollen biporate; ovary ellipsoid-cylindric to clavate; placentae apical; ovules apiculate. Fruit enlarged from the ovary, globose, white or red.