Hohenbergia utriculosa Ule

  • 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 utriculosa Ule

  • Type

    Type. Ule 7132 (holotype, B; photo, F 11299), Serra do Sincorá, Bahia, Brazil, Nov 1906.

  • Description

    Description - Plant flowering 1-2 m high. Leaves rather few, 4-18 dm long; sheaths 25-30 cm long, 15-20 cm wide, forming a subtubular rosette, entire, dark, densely dark-lepidote; blades subtriangular-ligulate, subrounded and narrowed to a triangular apex 1-2 cm long, laxly serrate with slightly curved dark brown spines 5 mm long. Scape stout, sparsely flocculose; scape-bracts imbricate, narrowly lanceolate, acuminate to a stout pungent spine. Inflorescence laxly pyramidal, tripinnate; primary bracts like the scape-bracts, shorter than the branches; branches spreading, dense with 2-8 spikes, the sterile bases to 3 cm long; spikes sessile, ovoid, 2-3 cm long, 10-30-flowered, densely lanate. Floral bracts 11 mm long, 8 mm wide, acuminate to a pungent spine 2-3 mm long, broadly convex, carinate, strongly nerved. Sepals exserted, ovate, 6 mm long, 4 mm wide, asymmetric, obtuse, convex, strongly carinate, coriaceous, rigid; petals linear, 10 mm long, purple or blue, bearing 2 fimbriate scales adnate to 3 mm above the base; stamens included; ovary 4-6 mm long, triangulate; placentae apical; ovules obtuse.

  • Distribution

    Saxicolous, 480-1050 m alt, Bahia, Brazil.

    Brazil South America| Bahia Brazil South America|