Hohenbergia distans (Griseb.) Baker

  • 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 distans (Griseb.) Baker

  • Type

    Type. Purdie s n (holotype, K; photo, GH), near the Dolphin, [Hanover Parish, Cornwall], Jamaica, Jan 1844.

  • Synonyms

    Aechmea distans Griseb.

  • Description

    Description - Leaves to 7 dm long; sheaths indistinct, scarcely broader than the blades, densely punctulate-lepidote above, covered with a membrane of dark appressed scales below; blades linear-ligulate, broadly rounded with a rigid apiculus, to 9 cm wide, armed with minute, lax to remote teeth or practically entire. Scape decurved, shorter than the leaves, slender, scantly brown-puberulous; scape-bracts erect, imbricate or lax, lanceolate, attenuate, entire, membranaceous. Inflorescence very laxly bipinnate, subpyramidal, exceeding the leaves; primary bracts like the scape-bracts, shorter than the stipes, spreading or reflexed; branches spreading, to 12(-21) cm long, their sterile bases twice to ten times longer than the spikes; spikes slenderly ellipsoid, acute, 10-flowered, 3(-6) cm long, 17 mm in diameter, glabrous. Floral bracts broadly ovate, acuminate, 815 mm long including the elongate mucro, prominently nerved; flowers 18 mm long. Sepals strongly asymmetric, 6 mm long including the terminal mucro; petals narrowly oblong, acute, 12 mm long, white or greenish when dry; second series of stamens much connate with the petals; ovary 5 mm long, angled, barely constricted at the summit, the epigynous tube lacking; ovules obtuse, borne along the upper half of the cell.

  • Distribution

    Epiphytic and saxicolous, 30-280 m alt, Jamaica.

    Jamaica South America| Westmoreland Jamaica South America|