Aechmea aripensis (N.E.Br.) Pittendr.

  • Authority

    Smith, Lyman B. & Downs, Robert J. 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 14 (3): 1493-2142. (Published by NYBG Press)

  • Family

    Bromeliaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Aechmea aripensis (N.E.Br.) Pittendr.

  • Type

    Type. Broadway 9917 (holotype, K; isotypes, NY, TRIN), Cerro del Aripo, northern Range, Trinidad, West Indies, 10-26 Jan 1922.

  • Synonyms

    Gravisia aripensis N.E.Br., Gravisia exsudans Mez

  • Description

    Description - Plant flowering 1 m high. Leaves 6-10 dm long, minutely appressed-lepidote; sheaths elliptic, 25 cm long; blades ligulate, abruptly acute, apiculate, 5-7 cm wide. Scape erect, 7-10 mm in diameter, densely brown-lanate; scape-bracts slightly inbricate, broadly ovate with a short stout linear pungent blade, bright rose, soon glabrous. Inflorescence corymbose, densely subglobose, 7-8 cm in diameter, brown-lanate; primary bracts suborbicular, pungent-apiculate, 5-7 cm long, nearly covering the branches, bright rose; branches very short, subellipsoid, densely many-flowered. Floral bracts lance-ovate, acute with a terminal mucro 3-4 mm long, slightly exceeding the sepals. Sepals strongly asymmetric, 15 mm long exclusive of the 6 mm mucro, free; petals 15-20 mm long, mucronate, deep blue; pollen grains with 4 pores; ovary obconic; epigynous tube 2 mm high.

  • Distribution

    Epiphytic and saxicolous in cloud forest, 900-1020 m alt, Trinidad and adjacent Venezuela.

    Venezuela South America| Sucre Venezuela South America| Trinidad and Tobago South America|