Ananas Mill.

Perennial, unbranched herbs, terrestrial or (not in Australia) epiphytic. Roots fibrous. Leaves in a dense rosette, alternate, ±linear-ensiform, scarcely expanded at base, serrate to almost entire. Flowers few to numerous, sessile, on an erect, scapose, bracteate cone-like inflorescence, usually surmounted by a tuft of sterile leafy bracts. Sepals free, obtuse, asymmetric. Petals free, erect, bearing 2 basal adaxial scales, red or purple. Stamens free, included; anthers introrse, basifixed. Style filiform, included; ovary inferior; all ovaries of inflorescence fused to each other. Fruit a yellow to red synangium. Seeds numerous to rare, or apparently absent, ovoid, brown.