Vriesea splendens
Content
Description
Plant acaulescent, flowering to over 1 m long, with a broad-funnelform, 35-70 cm tall rosette of about 15, mostly purple-red, transversely banded (variegated) and lustrous leaves. Leaves thin-subcoriaceous, 40-75 cm long, almost always much exceeded by the inflorescence; sheaths indistinct, merging gradually into the blade, elliptic, broadly convex, 13-17 x 5-8 cm, with narrow membranaceous margins, in lower part densely brown-appressed-lepidote, dull-brown to castaneous at the base and inside; blades arching, ligulate, 30-60 x (3-)5-6.5 cm, very broadly rounded, then triangular-attenuate or apiculate, very sparsely and minutely appressed-lepidote on both sides, deep-green and often with irregular, purple-red bands. Inflorescence simple, erect; scape 30-50 cm long, 0.5 -1 cm in diam., glabrous, mostly entirely hidden by bracts; scape bracts erect, imbricate, chartaceous, ovate, attenuately subacute or obtuse and acuminate, exceeding the internodes, but sometimes so narrow as to expose the scape in part, sparsely lepidote, at least at the apex; raceme linear or lanceolate, strongly complanate, 20-55 x 2.5-5.5(-6) cm, broadly acutish or obtuse, densely and distichously 4-18-flowered, with a few reduced sterile bracts at the base and apex; rachis entirely hidden, slightly flexuous, quadrangular, glabrous; floral bracts erect, densely imbricate, chartaceous, with finely veined surface when dry, ovate-oblong, 6.6-8 cm long, 4-6(-8) times longer than the internodes, more than twice as long as the sepals, with broad membranaceous margins, attenuately subacute, finely carinate toward the apex, glabrous, bright-red. Flowers appearing at one side of the bracts (slightly secund), short-pedicellate (including receptacle ca. 5 mm); sepals thin-coriaceous, with veined surface only when dry, oblong or obovate-lanceolate, 2.3-2.9 cm long, obtuse, evenly short-connate or almost free, ecarinate, glabrous outside, sparsely brown appressed-lepidote inside, yellowish and often red tinged at the apex; petals ligulate (linear-lanceolate), obtuse, 8 cm long, yellow, bearing two largely adnate ligules at the base; ligules linear, ca. 8 mm long, free lobe small, subentire, few-dented or truncate; stamens about equaling the petals, much exceeded by the pistil, all equal in length, filaments subterete, becoming flat toward the base near the ovary, anthers dorsifixed (at 2/5), linear-sagittate, nearly 1 cm long; ovary subcylindric, ca. 8 mm long, attenuate from near the base, slightly contracted into the slender style, stigma compact (subdiscoid). Capsule cylindric, ca. 3.5-4 cm long, much exceeding the sepals, abruptly rounded and beaked.