Flowering plant 20-40 cm high. Leaves many in a dense rosette, almost hairless; sheaths brownish; blades ligulate, 2 cm wide, yellow-green. Scape erect, with ovate, overlapping, pale green bracts. Inflorescence a single elongated cylindrical spike 8-15 cm long, 2-3 cm wide, sterile toward the tip; floral bracts ovate, overlapping, the fertile ones pale and usually with conspicuous brown longitudinal stripes, the sterile ones bright red or rarely white. Flowers white, 23-29 mm long; sepals 18 mm long; petals fused for most of their length; stamens included.
Southern Florida, West Indies, Nicaragua to northern Brazil and Peru.
G. wittmackii (Andre) Andre from Colombia and Ecuador has leaves to 85 cm long, 2-3 cm wide, almost hairless; sheaths over 16 cm long, brown; blades ligulate. Scape erect, 10-15 cm long with leaf-like bracts. Inflorescence laxly bipinnate with very short branches or few-flowered fascicles; primary bracts spreading, leaf-like, to 40 cm long, red, orange, white, sometimes green; floral bracts 6-8 cm long; sepals free, 4 cm long; petals 7-9 cm long, white; stamens included.
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.