Puya x berteroniana Mez

  • Authority

    Smith, Lyman B. & Downs, Robert J. 1974. Pitcairnioideae (Bromeliaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 14 (1): 1-658. (Published by NYBG Press)

  • Family

    Bromeliaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Puya x berteroniana Mez

  • Type

    TYPE. Bertero 115 e p (holotype, P), Quillota and La Quinta, Valparaiso, Chile. Rusby 2850 (NY) is Puya berteroniana and supposedly is from the vicinity of La Paz, Bolivia, but it seems highly probable that the label is in error.

  • Synonyms

    Puya alpestris (Poepp.) Gay, Puya coarctata (Ruiz & Pav.) Fisch., Pitcairnia coerulea Lindl., Puya coerulea Lindl., Puya whytei Hook., Pitcairnia alpestris L.H.Bailey

  • Description

    Description - Caudex prostrate, simple or branched, almost as large as that of Puya chilensis (5 m long, 15-20 cm in diameter), covered with the bases of old leaves; flowering shoot to 4.5 m high. Leaves numerous in a dense rosette, arched-recurving, 1 m long; blades to 50 mm wide, green and glabrous above, covered beneath with white appressed scales, the marginal spines stout, uncinate, to 10 mm long. Scape 55 mm in diameter, densely white-lanate when young; scape-bracts broadly lanceolate, reflexed, thin, more or less deciduous. Inflorescence amply bipinnate with 80-100 branches, slenderly pyramidal, to 1 m long, dense, persistently white-lanate; primary bracts like the upper scape-bracts, much shorter than the axillary branches; racemes subsessile, ca 3 dm long, densely flowering on the lower half, sterile on the upper half with numerous reduced white or red bracts. Floral bracts elliptic, acute, usually exceeded by the sepals at anthesis, membranaceous, white; flowers suberect; pedicels to 15 mm long. Sepals narrowly oblong, broadly acute or obtuse, 23 mm long, 6.5 mm wide, green, sometimes becoming glabrous with age; petals elliptic, obtuse, ca 5 cm long, blue-green, naked, glabrous; stamens about equaling the petals; pistil about 5 mm longer than the stamens. Capsule ellipsoid, much shorter than the sepals.

  • Discussion

    Rusby 2850 (NY) is Puya berteroniana and supposedly is from the vicinity of La Paz, Bolivia, but it seems highly probable that the label is in error.

  • Distribution

    Dry rocky slopes, 90-2000 m alt, central Chile.

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