Hohenbergia eriostachya Mez

  • 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

    Hohenbergia eriostachya Mez

  • Type

    Type. Harris in Bot. Dept. Herb. 5566 (holotype, B; photo 1194/25-27), between Lancaster and Moody s Gap, Portland Parish, Jamaica, 8 Mar 1895.

  • Description

    Description - Plant flowering at least 75 cm high. Leaves about 1 m long; sheaths elliptic-ovate, large, densely lepidote with very minute immersed brown scales, brown; blades rounded with a broad apiculate summit, 7-10 cm wide, densely pale-appressed-lepidote throughout but especially below, armed with dark spines 3 mm long but decreasing in size toward the leaf-apex. Scape erect, elongate but much shorter than the leaves, 4-5 mm in diameter, sulcate, soon glabrous; scape-bracts ovate, acute, chartaceous, the upper imbricate or shorter than the internodes. Inflorescence bipinnate with 20-30 spikes; primary bracts very narrowly triangular, shorter or longer than the stipes, entire; spikes all distinctly stipitate, broadly ellipsoid, 2 cm long, the lower about the length of their stipes, the upper distinctly longer, densely tomentose with smoky-ferruginous scales. Floral bracts erect, broadly ovate, obtuse, short-mucronate, 11 mm long, exceeded by the sepals, 12 mm wide, broadly convex, striate toward the apex; flowers strongly compressed. Sepals strongly asymmetric, emarginate, mucronate, 5 mm long, even, rigid, free; petals lance-linear, acute, 8 mm long, each bearing 2 thick scales extending for most of their length and with a very narrow free margin; ovules obtuse.

  • Distribution

    Epiphytic, 450-1170 m alt, Jamaica.

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