Puya ferruginea is a smaller-sized slow-growing Puya with rosettes of long very thin silvery-green foliage that often twists towards the tips giving the plant a wind-blown assymetrical appearance like a spiky tussock. Older dried leaves can form a skirt around the thin trunk which often produce basal offsets. It is one of the more widespread Puya taxa with a range that extends in isolated pockets throughout Peru, both in the high Andes to elevations of 4000m and down to scattered populations in the coastal Lomas formations at 400m, then north to Ecuador and south into Bolivia. It is known locally as Achupalla although that is a generic name for many Puya. It has a smallish scape from which the delicate flowers dangle in a very loose arrangement as opposed to the tight clusters often seen in most Puya species. They are a pale white colour with tones of green and yellow but also can have a pale purplish colouration matching the darker, slightly velvety tepals. In South America, they are pollinated by bats. We find Puya ferruginea to be the slowest-growing of the various Puya species that we have raised from seed.

A very interesting species, Puya ferruginea is ideally suited to pot culture because of its relative small size and can be brought into an unheated glasshouse and left under fleece for the winter. It seems hardy to at least -6C.