Vriesea capituligera
Content
Description
Plant flowering 50-80 cm long, with a densely, ca. 50 cm tall, crateriform rosette. Leaves ca. 70 cm long, much exceeding the scape; sheaths inconspicuous, merging into the blade, densely and minutely brown-lepidote, brown; blades slightly arching, ligulate, ca. 50 x 6-8 cm, acuminate or subacute, obscurely punctulate-lepidote outside, glabrous inside. Inflorescence columnar, very densely bipinnate with ca. 30axillary spikes, red; scape erect, stout, short, entirely concealed by the leaves and its bracts; scape bracts erect, densely imbricate, foliaceous, attenuately acute, much exceeding the internodes, green or red; axis barely (if at all) visible, stout (nearly) straight; primary bracts spreading with, and sheathing the spikes, subchartaceous, suborbicular, inflated-convex, narrowly triangular-acute, (nearly) all exceeding the axillary spikes, >glabrescent?, bright-red; spikes on short (up to 1 cm), and stout peduncle, spreading, subglobose (corymbose), ca. 4 cm long, 3-4 cm in diam., with 10-15 fasciculate flowers; rachis much reduced, about 3 mm long; floral bracts erect, densely imbricate, chartaceous and veined when dry, broadly elliptic or ovate, 2.5-3 cm long, much exceeding the internodes, equaling or exceeding the sepals, obtuse and apiculate, red with a whitish apex. Flowers erect, subsessile; receptacle stout, complanate; sepals coriaceous, with even surface, elliptic, ca. 2 cm long, obtuse, free?, ecarinate, glabrous; petals linear obtuse, ca. 2.8 cm long, with spreading blade, white, bearing 2linear, acuminate ligules at the base, free; stamens about equaling the pistil, just emerging from the throat of the corolla; ovary slender ovoid, ca. 1 cm long, contracted into the subslender style, stigmas linear?. Capsule slenderly ellipsoid, barely exceeding the sepals.
Distribution
Chimanta-tepui present, E. Bolivar present, E. Colombia present, Greater Antilles present, Guyana, Rio Venamo present, S. Peru present, Trinidad present
Greater Antilles, E. Colombia to Trinidad and S. Peru. It is recorded from E. Bolivar, Chimanta-tepui and Rio Venamo, and it may be expected in Guyana. No material studied.