Billbergia distachia (Vell.) Mez
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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 propagating by short slender rhizomes, flowering 4-6 dm high with the inflorescence extended. Leaves few in a cylindric or slenderly bulbous rosette, rarely white-spotted, the outer much reduced, the inner 25-90 cm long; sheaths large, elliptic, much wider than the blades; blades narrowly triangular and attenuate or sometimes the inner linear and rounded, from very narrow to 5 cm wide, laxly and minutely serrulate to entire, sparsely pale-appressed-lepidote beneath, not banded. Scape very slender, decurved, glabrous; scape-bracts erect, imbricate, lanceolate, acute, rose, covered with white, appressed scales beneath. Inflorescence pseudosimple with very short spreading branches, lax, few-flowered, glabrous; axis very slender, geniculate. Floral bracts minute, much shorter than the ovary; flowers sessile. Sepals oblong, obtuse or emarginate to minutely apiculate, 17-25 mm long, very pale green; petals linear, obtuse, 40-52 mm long, pale green, bearing 2 serrate scales at base; stamens included, filaments of the second series short-connate with the petals, pollen ellipsoid, sculptured, sulcate when dry; ovary slenderly ellipsoid, sulcate, epigynous tube short, funnelform; ovules apiculate; fruit distinctly enlarged from the ovary.