Pitcairnia angustifolia Aiton

• Title

  Pitcairnia angustifolia Aiton

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Pitcairnia angustifolia Sol. ex Aiton

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Pitcairnia angustifolia Erizo Narrow-leaved Pitcairnia Family Bromeliaceae Pine-apple Family Hepetis angustifolia Swartz, Prodromus Descriptionum Vegetabilium 56.1788. Pitcairnia angustifolia Redouté, Les Liliacées 2: pl. 76. 1805. Often forming large and conspicuous dark green masses on rocks and cliffs, by its elongated, narrow leaves, and attractive when in bloom by clustered, showy, bright red, or rarely yellow flowers, borne at the ends of long, slender, nearly leafless stalks (scapes), this herbaceous plant is frequent at lower and middle altitudes in Porto Rico, mostly in wet districts, and grows also on Vieques. It ranges eastward through the Virgin Islands, southward in the Lesser Antilles from St. Kitts to Grenada, and occurs also in Cuba. Piña de cuervo is another Spanish name. Pitcairnia, a genus established by the botanist L'Heritier in 1788, dedicated to Doctor William Pitcairn, who lived from 1711 to 1791, contains many species, estimated at about 140, all natives of tropical America, as are all other species of the Pine-apple Family. Most of the Pitcairnias are terrestrial, or rock-inhabiting plants, and have tufted, narrow, long leaves with spinulose margins, and showy, scapose flowers. The 3 sepals are convolute, the 3 petals narrow; the 6 stamens have slender filaments and narrow anthers; the 3-celled ovary contains many ovules, the style is very slender, the stigma somewhat oblique. The capsular fruit splits into 3 valves.