Vriesea platynema
Content
Description
Plant acaulescent, flowering up to 1.5 m long, with an open broadly funnelform, 30-70 cm tall rosette, of manyglaucous-green leaves. Leaves thin-coriaceous, 25-75 cm long, much exceeded by the inflorescence; sheaths conspicuous, tapering into the blade, elliptic, scarcely inflated (?), 10-15 x 7-10 cm, densely and minutely brown-lepidote, often in great part dark-brown, castaneous outside; blades arched-spreading, ligulate, 15-65 x 4.5-7.5 cm, broadly rounded and apiculate, soon sparsely and minutely lepidote, often glaucous with dark transverse wavy patterns. Inflorescence erect, simple; scape stout, 25-80 cm long, glabrous, often partly exposed; scape bracts erect, often(?) with spreading apex, mostly barely imbricate, subchartaceous, the lower ones foliaceous, but soon ovate, triangular-acuminate, exceeding the internodes at least by the apex, sparsely lepidote toward the apex, green to red; raceme ovate-oblong to linear in outline, strongly complanate, 25-45(-66) x 7-10 cm, sublaxly and distichously 13-30(-60)-flowered, with one or a few imbricate sterile bracts at the apex; rachis entirely exposed, usually rather stout, nearly straight or slightly flexuous, angled and sulcate, glabrous; floral bracts clasping the flower, thin-coriaceous, with faintly veined (dry) or even surface, (broadly) ovate, the lower 3-4 cm long, about 4 times as long as the internodes, much exceeded by the sepals, with broad membranaceous margins, obtuse, slightly incurved at the apex, ecarinate, glabrous, purple-red or reddish. Flowers spreading or reflexed, on 7-15 mm long pedicels; sepals coriaceous, with veined surface at least at the base when dry, elliptic, 3-3.5 cm long, posterior ones short-connate or almost free, ecarinate, only punctulate-lepidote inside, yellow; petals erect, obovate-oblong, obtuse, ca. 5 cm long, greenish-yellow, bearing 2large few-dented or rhombic ligules at the base; stamens exposed by the subspreading but longer petals, equaling or shorter than the pistil, filaments flat, dilated toward the apex, anthers dorsifixed (nearly at the base), over 1 cm long; ovary ca. 7 mm long, style slender. Capsule broadly cylindric, to 6 cm long, attenuately subacute.