Tillandsia filifolia Schltdl. & Cham.

  • Authority

    Smith, Lyman B. & Downs, Robert J. 1977. Tillandsioideae (Bromeliaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 14 (2): 663-1492. (Published by NYBG Press)

  • Family

    Bromeliaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Tillandsia filifolia Schltdl. & Cham.

  • Type

    Type. Schiede & Deppe 1005 (holotype B, isotypes BM, G), Hacienda de la Laguna, Vera Cruz, Mexico.

  • Synonyms

    Tillandsia staticeflora E.Morren, Platystachys filifolia (Schltdl. & Cham.) Beer

  • Description

    Description - Plant usually stemless, flowering 25-30 cm high. Leaves many in a dense rosette, 15-30 cm long, spreading in all directions, cinereous-lepidote with appressed or slightly spreading scales; sheaths triangular, conspicuous, dark-brown, glabrous with age; blades filiform, 1 mm wide at base, channeled above, green. Scape erect, 1 mm in diameter, glabrous, brownish-green; scape-bracts ovate or elliptic, 8 mm long, all but the uppermost filiform-caudate, barely exceeding the internodes, membranaceous, prominently nerved, appressed-lepidote. Inflorescence laxly bipinnate, broadly pyramidal, 15 cm long; primary bracts like the upper scape-bracts but nearly or quite glabrous, barely reaching the lowest flower of the axillary branch; spikes suberect to spreading, laxly 10-16-flowered with an aborted flower at the apex, to 1 dm long; rhachis very slender, flexuous, glabrous. Floral bracts spreading at an angle of 45°, equaling or slightly longer than the internodes, elliptic, obtuse or broadly acute, 7-8 mm long, equaling or slightly longer than the sepals, membranaceous, prominently nerved; flowers subsessile. Sepals narrowly elliptic, obtuse, 7-8 mm long, submembranaceous, prominently nerved, glabrous outside, lepidote inside, equally short-connate; petals ligulate, 10 mm long, pale-lilac, the blade spreading; stamens barely longer than the petals and pistil. Capsule slenderly cylindric, 25 mm long.

  • Distribution

    Epiphytic in forest, 100-2000 m alt, central Mexico to Costa Rica.

    Mexico North America| Veracruz Mexico North America| Puebla Mexico North America| Oaxaca Mexico North America| Chiapas Mexico North America| Guatemala Central America| Petén Guatemala Central America| Huehuetenango Guatemala Central America| Alta Verapaz Guatemala Central America| Izabal Guatemala Central America| Honduras Central America| Cortés Honduras Central America| Comayagua Honduras Central America| Yoro Honduras Central America| Atlántida Honduras Central America| Costa Rica South America| Puntarenas Costa Rica Central America| Cartago Costa Rica Central America|