Rosette robust, stiff, tubular. Leaves 30-90 cm long, 6-10 cm wide; sheath covered with purple-brown scales; blade leathery, green with a grey-green underside; margins with coarse black teeth; tip with a short point or cusp. Scape slender, erect, bright red, white woolly. Inflorescence simple, cylindrical, to 25 cm long; bracts red; sepals yellow-green; petals yellow.
A. nudicaulis is in the subgenus Pothuava (Group 6).
Central America to Brazil
Very common in cultivation in its many forms.
var. aureorosea (Antoine) L.B. Sm. is occasionally encountered and differs by having red sepals and ovary.
A. pineliana (Brongn.) Baker from Brazil has a funnel-shaped rosette. Leaves 30-50 cm long, 3-9 cm wide, green with a dense covering of silvery scales, sometimes banded on the underside; margins with prominent brown-black teeth; tip rounded and with a sharp spined tip. Inflorescence on a short scape, dense, cylindrical, pine cone-like, 6-7 cm long; bracts bright red, densely white scaled, with a long, prominent bristly tip. Flowers spreading, stalkless; petals yellow turning dark brown. The var. minuta M.B. Foster is a miniature form with bronzy pink foliage.
Source: (2005). Bromeliaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 5. Flowering plants. Monocotyledons. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
