Hohenbergia portoricensis 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 portoricensis Mez

  • Type

    Type. Sintenis 1321 (holotype, B; B, photo 1194/33), Piedra Pelada, Sierra de Naguabo, Puerto Rico, 26 Apr 1885.

  • Description

    Description - Leaves 5-8 dm long; sheaths subelliptic, barely distinct from the blades, violet toward the apex, densely lepidote with pale-brown, appressed scales; blades ligulate, rounded and triangular-apiculate, 5 cm wide, serrulate with teeth barely 1 mm long, glabrous above, appressed-lepidote below. Scape about 3 mm in diameter, white-floccose when young but soon glabrous; scape-bracts ovate-lanceolate, erect, shorter than the internodes, pungent, sparsely serrulate. Inflorescence equaling or slightly exceeding the leaves, rather laxly bipinnate, 2 dm long, sparsely white-floccose; primary bracts like the scape-bracts but entire, slightly shorter than the spikes; spikes spreading, about 12-flowered, subglobose, the upper sessile, the lower on stalks about equaling them. Floral bracts ovate, attenuate, 15 mm long including the mucro, equaling the sepals, prominently striate. Sepals 6-7 mm long including the stout brown mucro; petals linear-lanceolate, acute, 11 mm long, each bearing 2 long scales with very narrow free margins; ovary subglobose, glabrous, with a shallow epigynous tube; ovules borne at the top of the cell, obtuse. Fruit slightly enlarged from the ovary; seeds subellipsoid, 2-2.5 mm long, purplish.

  • Distribution

    Epiphytic and terrestrial, ca 600 m alt, Puerto Rico.

    Puerto Rico South America|