A tall woody monocarpic (?) plant with the habit of a palm, having a stout hollow unbranched stem 12–15 ft. high, naked in the lower part when in flower, densely leafy towards the top, and terminating in a long simple dense spiciform bracteate raceme of greyish violet flowers. Leaves crowded, alternate, sessile, oblong-lanceolate, acute, entire, 1–2 ft. long, clothed with a grey woolly tomentum when young, ultimately quite glabrous, almost as broad at the base as in the middle, of a papery texture, traversed by a thick fleshy midrib, gradually passing into bracts. Flowers and bracts clothed with a dense soft felt-like tomentum; bracts leafy in the lower part of the inflorescence, smaller upwards, but always much longer than the flowers. Flowers 2–3 in. long, shortly pedicellate; calyx-lobes about half as long as the corolla, which finally splits into 5 free petals. Stamens equalling the style but much shorter than the corolla; filaments free at the base, connate above the middle; anthers connate around the stigma, the two lower ones bearded. Capsule oblong-spherical, prominently 10-ribbed, crowned by the long persistent calyx-lobes.
