Hohenbergia catingae Ule
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Authority
Smith, Lyman B. & Downs, Robert J. 1979. Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 14 (3): 1493-2142. (Published by NYBG Press)
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Family
Bromeliaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Description - Plant flowering 1-1.5 m high. Leaves many in a dense rosette, 5-8 dm long; sheaths oblong, to 20 cm long, 12 cm wide, dark castaneous, covered with small appressed brown scales, serrulate toward apex; blades linear, 3-4 cm wide, contracted into a stout involute spine 2 cm long, densely pale-lepidote beneath, soon subglabrous above, laxly serrate with dark antrorse spines to 6 mm long. Scape erect, about 1 cm in diameter, flocculose; scape-bracts erect, tightly clasping, ovate, acuminate, pungent. Inflorescence amply tripinnate; primary bracts like the scape-bracts, equaling or shorter than the branches; spikes sessile, ovoid, ellipsoid, or cylindric, subaggregated at the apices of the branches and some lateral, 3-6 cm long, sparsely flocculose. Floral bracts broadly ovate, long-attenuate to a pungent spine, 12-18 mm long, 11 mm wide, strongly convex, carinate, strongly nerved; sepals very asymmetric, 8 mm long, 5 mm wide, short-mucronulate; petals ligulate, acute, 13-16 mm long, purple or yellow, bearing 2 fimbriate scales; stamens included; ovary obconic; placentae apical; ovules caudate.