Vriesea hygrometrica
Content
Description
Plant acaulescent, flowering to ca. 50 cm tall, with a spreading to ascending rosette. Leaves 21-31 cm, exceeded by the inflorescence; sheaths more or less conspicuous, tapering into the blade, stiff chartaceous, elliptic to oblong (-ovate), 7.4-13.5 x 3.7-6.2 cm, with thin and pale margins, castaneous and appearing pruinose caused by a coat of white appressed scales outside, pale-brown inside, cinereously lepidote; blades chartaceous, (sub-) ligulate, 14-21 x 3.5-4(-5) cm, obtuse (broadly acute) and acuminate, glabrous or obscurely lepidote at both sides, green with a fine wavy transverse pattern of darker green or maroon lines (tessellate, mostly lost in dried material). Inflorescence erect, densely bipinnate of about 12 two-flowered branches, fertile part 5-8 cm long, cylindric, green with gelatinous exudate at anthesis; scape straight, 33.5-40 cm long, 4-8 mm in diam., densely covered by bracts; scape bracts erect to divergent at the apex, very densely imbricate, chartaceous, the lower ones lanceolate, the upper ones more ovate, acuminate to acute, much exceeding the internodes, tessellate, glabrescent; axis short and hidden, stout, straight, strongly rugose when dry; primary bracts spreading and curving at the apex, clasping the flowers, subcoriaceous, somewhat plicate, ovate, triangular-acute or acuminate, much exceeding the 2 fasciculate flowers, glabrescent, pale-green; peduncle from almost none to 5 mm long, subspreading, stout; branches much reduced, subspreading, typically two-flowered; rachis reduced to nearly none; floral bracts erect, straight and conduplicate, subcoriaceous but membranaceous when dry, soon disintegrating, even, (broadly) elliptic to ovate-oblong, 1.8-2.3 cm long, exceeding the sepals, acute to rounded, often torn-incised, carinate, glabrescent, green. The two flowers contiguous, sessile; sepals coriaceous, even, elliptic to (ob-) ovate, 1.1-2 cm long, slightly thinner at the margins, obtuse to rounded, slightly incurved, free, ecarinate, very sparsely and minutely lepidote at both sides, green; petals campanulate, elliptic to obovate, 2.3-3.4 cm long, free, lustrous pale-green or whitish, bearing two ligules at the base, ligules unequally bidentate, half adnate to the petals, 4-6 mm long; stamens in hood configuration over the pistil and just exceeded by it, filaments ovate in lower part, abruptly contracted into a slender upper part, straight, loosely adnate to the petals, flattened, whitish, anthers 5-8 mm long, pollen pale-yellow; ovary ovoid, 4-6 mm long, contracted into the subslender style, stigma three-cupped. Capsule cylindric or slenderly ellipsoid, 2-2.5 cm long and ca 0.7 cm in diam., just exceeding the floral bracts, obtuse and apiculate, brownish to castaneous.
Distribution
Cerro Venamo near Guyana boundary present, E. Bolivar present, Guyana, S. Colombia present, Southern America: Ecuador (Ecuador present); Venezuela (Venezuela present)
S. Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, E. Bolivar, Cerro Venamo near Guyana boundary. It may be expected in Guyana. 3 collections studied.