Aechmea mertensii (G.Mey.) Schult. & Schult.f.
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Authority
Smith, Lyman B. 1957. The Bromeliaceae of Colombia. Contr. U. S. Natl. Herb. 33: i-v, 1-311.
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Family
Bromeliaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Description - Plant very variable, 2-8 dm, high; leaves rather few, rosulate, to 7 dm. long, sometimes exceeding the inflorescence, covered with white appressed scales especially beneath, sheaths large, usually distinct, sometimes purplish, entire, blades ligulate, acute, pungent, 1.5-8 cm. wide, green, laxly serrate with dark nearly straight spines 1-6 mm. long; scape usually erect, slender; scape-bracts lanceolate, acute, serrulate, bright rose, the upper spreading and massed beneath the inflorescence; inflorescence bipinnate, many-flowered, terete, lax to dense, to 35 cm, long but often much shorter, 3-5 cm. in diameter, white-flocculose, soon glabrous; lower primary bracts like the scapebracts, the others smaller than the floral bracts; spikes spreading, densely 2-8-flowered; floral bracts very broadly ovate or subreniform, enfolding most of the ovary, 5 mm, long, mucronate; flowers distichous, suberect, to 13 mm. long; sepals free, strongly asymmetric, 4 mm. long, mucronate; petals ligulate, mucronate, yellow or red, bearing 2 oblong scales at the base; ovary ellipsoid, epigynous tube distinct; placentae apical; ovules caudate; fruit much enlarged from the ovary, blue,