Pitcairnia orchidifolia Mez

  • Authority

    Smith, Lyman B. & Downs, Robert J. 1974. Pitcairnioideae (Bromeliaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 14 (1): 1-658. (Published by NYBG Press)

  • Family

    Bromeliaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Pitcairnia orchidifolia Mez

  • Type

    TYPE. H. Pittier 8931 (holotype, B; isotypes, GH, US, VEN), Las Trincheras, Valencia, Carabobo, Venezuela, 20 Jun 1920.

  • Description

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    Description - Plant flowering 5 dm high. Leaves 20 in a dense rosette with the outer recurved and the inner erect, persistent, all alike, not petiolate; sheaths short, triangular; blades lanceolate, attenuate, 17 cm long, 2 cm wide, serrulate at base with spines 1 mm long, elsewhere entire, lepidote beneath. Scape stiffly erect, glabrous; scape-bracts erect, exceeding the internodes, lanceolate, attenuate, glabrous. Inflorescence laxly racemose, few-flowered, finely subpilose-lepidote. Floral bracts lanceolate, slightly lepidote toward apex, the lower ones slightly exceeding the pedicels, the upper about equaling them, the median 12 mm long; flowers strict, cinnabar-red; pedicels slender, the lower ones to 14 mm long. Sepals lanceolate, acute, 20 mm long, ecarinate, glabrous; petals to 65 mm long, bearing a crenate-fimbriate scale above the base; stamens included; ovary more than 3/4 superior; ovules short-caudate.

  • Distribution

    Saxicolous, central coastal Venezuela.

    Venezuela South America|