Rosette broad, funnel-shaped. Leaves strap-shaped to 10 cm wide, green with darker green blotches, rounded to broadly pointed, margins spiny. Inflorescence on a stout scape, brown woolly, densely many-flowered; bracts yellowish-white, pale green at the tip; sepals white; petals longer than the sepals, white to pale green at the tip.

Eastern Brazil

var. roseum (Morren) L.B. Sm., has a smaller fewer-flowered inflorescence with pink to red bracts.

A plant under the name of C. leopardinum is often encountered. This is a hybrid between C. giganteum × C. lindenii var. roseum and is very rare flowering. The leaves are similar to C. lindenii. There is strong evidence to suggest that all C. leopardinum in Australia are C. lindenii. Leme (1997) now places this species in the genus Edmundoa due to the inflorescence being densely and persistently felty.

Source: Christensen, T.; Butcher, D. (2005). Bromeliaceae. In: Spencer, R.. Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 5. Flowering plants. Monocotyledons. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press. (as Canistrum lindenii)