Plants usually single, rarely clustering, flowering to 10 cm. Stems short. Leaves 5--10, many-ranked, contorted or secund-spreading, gray-green to silver, 6--10 ´ 0.3--0.5 cm, densely pruinose-scaly, scales coarse; sheath dark chestnut brown within, ovate to elliptic, conspicuously inflated, forming small pseudobulb, 1.5--3 cm wide; blade linear-subulate, semisucculent, margins involute, apex attenuate. Inflorescences: scape inconspicuous, usually ascending, 1--3 cm, 2--3 mm diam.; bracts densely imbricate, erect to spreading, like leaves but gradually smaller; sheath of bracts narrowing abruptly into blade; single spikes, usually ascending, pinnate, broadly elliptic, compressed, 2--3 ´ 1.2--2.4 cm, apex acute to obtuse. Floral bracts imbricate, erect, pink, broad (covering all or most of rachis, rachis not visible at anthesis), ovate, keeled, 2--2.2 cm, thin-leathery, base not visible at anthesis, apex broadly acute, surfaces densely scaly, venation even to slight. Flowers 3--12, conspicuous; sepals free, elliptic, adaxial pair keeled, 1.2--1.8 cm, thin-leathery, veined, apex obtuse, surfaces glabrous; corolla tubular; petals erect, blue-violet, ligulate, to 3 cm; stamens exserted; stigma exserted, conduplicate-spiral. Fruits to 3.5 cm.

Flowering spring--summer. Epiphytic in shady, humid hammocks; 0--30 m; Fla.; West Indies; Central America; South America.

In the flora area, Tillandsia pruinosa is infrequent but locally abundant.