Vriesea amazonica
Content
Description
Plant acaulescent, flowering to ca. 1.5 m long, with a very broad, 45-65 m tall (ca. 140 cm wide) funnelform rosette, of about 15 leaves. Leaves thin-coriaceous, 60-80 cm long, exceeded by the scape; sheaths ample, tapering into the blade, ovate or elliptic, slightly inflated, 17-22 x 10-16 cm, with membranaceous margins, densely appressed-lepidote with minute pale-brown scales on both sides, whitish toward the apex; blades spreading, slightly arching, ligulate, 40-58 x 7-11 cm, rounded, then triangular attenuate and long-acuminate, obscurely appressed-lepidote on both sides, pale-green (?). Inflorescence erect, simple, laxly or subdigitately compound of 2-4(-9) spikes; scape ca. 60 cm long, 1-1.5 cm in diam., glabrous, exposed by the upper bracts; scape bracts erect, the lower ones foliaceous and densely imbricate, the upper ones more broadly ovate and acuminate or caudate, about equaling the internodes or exceeding them by the elongate apex, but then so narrow as to expose the scape in part, subdensely and very minutely lepidote, green to purple; axis short or ample, stout, flexuous, subterete; primary bracts as the upper scape bracts, spreading with, and much shorter than the peduncle; peduncles spreading, 7-13 cm long, prophyllate and densely bracteate; peduncle bracts as the floral bracts, exceeding the internodes, but so narrow as to expose the peduncle in part; racemes slightly arching, asymmetrical, 18-32 cm long, subdensely and distichously 7-17-flowered, with one or a few reduced sterile bracts at the apex; rachis exposed at anthesis, distinctly geniculate, sub-quadrangular; floral bracts secund with, and clasping the flowers, coriaceous, with even surface, broadly ovate, inflated-convex, 2-3 cm long, equaling or exceeding the internodes, much exceeded by the sepals, obtuse or acutish, slightly apiculate, bluntly carinate at the apex, subglabrous, yellow-green(?). Flowers strongly downward secund, distinctly pedicellate; pedicel stout, 0.5-1 cm long (including receptacle); sepals coriaceous, with even surface, elliptic, 2.1-2.9 cm long, with broad membranaceous margins, broadly obtuse, incurved at the extreme apex, free, ecarinate, obscurely lepidote inside, glabrous outside; petals recurving, subcoriaceous, 4-4.5 cm long, cream-colored, bearing two irregularly dentate ligules at the base; stamens about equaling the pistil, shorter than the petals, filaments firm, subterete, slightly dilated toward the apex, anthers dorsifixed (nearly at the base), linear, ca. 12 mm long, the small basal lobes and apex obtuse; ovary ovoid, ca. 8 mm long, contracted into the subslender style, stigma subcyathiform. Capsule broadly cylindric, 4-4.5 cm long, tapering from about the middle toward the apex, short-beaked.