Tillandsia tricholepis Baker
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Authority
Smith, Lyman B. & Downs, Robert J. 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 14 (2): 663-1492. (Published by NYBG Press)
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Family
Bromeliaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Description - Plant moss-like; roots present; stems many from a single point, densely massed, at first bearing flowers when short and simple but later elongate and much branched, to 22 cm long including the longest branch, but usually much less. Leaves densely polystichous; sheaths distinct, broadly ovate, glabrous and covered by the one below except at the extreme apex, membranaceous, scarious with 4-5 central nerves and broad nerveless margins; blades appressed to somewhat divergent, narrowly triangular, subulate-attenuate, involute, densely ferruginous- or cinereous-furfuraceous with lacerate asymmetric scales produced below into a spreading lobe so that under a lens the leaves appear reflexed-tomentose. Scapes at first terminal, soon becoming pseudo-axillary by the elongation of the stem, straight or somewhat flexuous, 1-4 cm long, 0.3-0.5 mm in diameter, sulcate, soon glabrous; scape-bracts several, evenly distributed, nearly or quite as long as the internodes, closely enfolding and concealing most of the scape, lanceolate, acute, 5-8 mm long, membranaceous, sulcate, lepidote. Inflorescence always simple, 1-5-flowered, sometimes with a sterile floret at apex, narrowly lanceolate, to 17 mm long; rhachis slender, nearly straight, angled, glabrous. Floral bracts like the scape-bracts but broadly ovate, 6 mm long, ecarinate, enfolding the rhachis for about half their length, slightly but consistently shorter than the sepals; flowers erect, subsessile but appearing stipitate because of the narrowing of the calyx-tube, to 9 mm long. Sepals lanceolate, acute, 6.5 mm long, equally connate for 1.5 mm, membranaceous, nerved, sparsely lepidote or glabrous; petals linear, yellow, pale-punctate; blade indistinct, obtuse, spreading at anthesis; stamens deeply included, less than half as long as the petals, exceeding the pistil; anthers linear, acutish, basifixed; ovary prismatic with a projecting ring just below the apex, style short but slender, stigmas reaching the base of the anthers. Capsule slenderly cylindric, abruptly contracted into a short beak, to 2 cm long; seed narrowly fusiform, to 3 mm long, coma to 14 mm long.