Plant flowering to 1.8 m high. Leaves about 40 in a spreading rosette; sheaths 6 cm wide; blades linear-triangular, 1-3 cm wide, with hooked marginal spines to 6 mm long. Scape lateral with ovate or elliptic bracts. Inflorescence laxly compound, 20-50 cm long, densely scaled; branches densely capitate to short cylindrical; male plants sometimes bearing secondary branches to 7 cm long in the axils of the original branches; floral bracts yellow-brown; sepals 4-4.5 mm long, brown; petals 5 mm long, white; stamens included.
Mexico and Guatemala
Plants variously called H. scariosa or H. texensis in cultivation are usually the more common H. glomerata. Both male and female plants are in cultivation.
H. macdougallii L.B. Sm. from Mexico grows to about 1 m high. Leaves to 70 cm long, 8 cm wide, narrowly triangular, green with reddish tinge, scaled throughout, strongly spined. Scape red. Inflorescence laxly bipinnate, about 70 cm long, 30 cm wide. Flowers on a flower stalk 2 mm long; petals red.
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.