Monographs Details:
Authority:
Smith, Lyman B. & Downs, Robert J. 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 14 (3): 1493-2142. (Published by NYBG Press)
Smith, Lyman B. & Downs, Robert J. 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 14 (3): 1493-2142. (Published by NYBG Press)
Family:
Bromeliaceae
Bromeliaceae
Description:
Description - Plant flowering 6-12 dm high. Leaves many in a dense funnelform rosette, straight or slightly curved, to 1 m long; sheaths large, elliptic, much wider than the blades, entire, covered with minute appressed brown scales; blades ligulate, broadly acute and the attenuate to a pungent spine, 3-8 cm wide, green or reddish, obscurely lepidote on both sides, serrate at base with dark spines 5 mm long or sometimes minute, very laxly serrate or subentire toward apex. Scape erect, to 8 mm in diameter, pale-flocculose; scape-bracts erect and densely imbricate, lance-elliptic, acute, sometimes laxly serrulate, subpapyraceous, red, minutely white-flocculose or white-lepidote. Inflorescence laxly tripinnate, 3-4 dm long, sparsely furfuraceous; primary bracts like the scape-bracts, often shorter than the branches, entire; branches spreading, to 3 dm long; spikes laxly 1-5-flowered, spreading, bearing sterile bracts at apex; rhachis nearly straight, slender. Floral bracts broadly ovate and enfolding the base of the ovary, acuminate to a spine, entire, the margins free from the rhachis; flowers suberect, sessile, to 20 mm long. Sepals free, strongly asymmetric, 5 mm long without the 1-2 mm long terminal spine, green; petals ligulate, ca 16 mm long, yellow, bearing 2 fimbriate scales at base; stamens included; ovary subglobose; placentae apical; ovules caudate.
Description - Plant flowering 6-12 dm high. Leaves many in a dense funnelform rosette, straight or slightly curved, to 1 m long; sheaths large, elliptic, much wider than the blades, entire, covered with minute appressed brown scales; blades ligulate, broadly acute and the attenuate to a pungent spine, 3-8 cm wide, green or reddish, obscurely lepidote on both sides, serrate at base with dark spines 5 mm long or sometimes minute, very laxly serrate or subentire toward apex. Scape erect, to 8 mm in diameter, pale-flocculose; scape-bracts erect and densely imbricate, lance-elliptic, acute, sometimes laxly serrulate, subpapyraceous, red, minutely white-flocculose or white-lepidote. Inflorescence laxly tripinnate, 3-4 dm long, sparsely furfuraceous; primary bracts like the scape-bracts, often shorter than the branches, entire; branches spreading, to 3 dm long; spikes laxly 1-5-flowered, spreading, bearing sterile bracts at apex; rhachis nearly straight, slender. Floral bracts broadly ovate and enfolding the base of the ovary, acuminate to a spine, entire, the margins free from the rhachis; flowers suberect, sessile, to 20 mm long. Sepals free, strongly asymmetric, 5 mm long without the 1-2 mm long terminal spine, green; petals ligulate, ca 16 mm long, yellow, bearing 2 fimbriate scales at base; stamens included; ovary subglobose; placentae apical; ovules caudate.