Vriesea viridiflora
Content
Description
Plant acaulescent, flowering ca. 80 cm long, with a dense, 40-60 cm tall rosette. Leaves chartaceous, 40-70 cm long, about equaling or shorter than the scape, bronze-green to dark red-purple; sheaths distinct, tapering into the blade, oblong (elliptic), 17-20 x 5.5-7.5 cm, with broad membranaceous margins, (sub-) densely and minutely appressed-lepidote on both sides, pale-green or brown; blades arching, ligulate or ensiform, 35-50 x 4-5 cm, triangular-attenuate and acuminate, obscurely appressed-lepidote at least toward the apex. Inflorescence simple, 60-90 cm long; scape erect, 45-60 cm long, 4-7 mm in diam., glabrous, mostly wholly covered by bracts; scape bracts imbricate or the upper ones remote, all submembranaceous, ovate, broadly rounded and apiculate, just exceeding or slightly shorter than the internodes, obscurely lepidote, pale-brown with green; raceme linear, 13-21 cm long, densely and distichously 15-20-flowered; rachis partly visible at anthesis (because of the secund flowers and bracts), slightly geniculate, angled, glabrous; floral bracts secund, loosely sheathing around the flowers, chartaceous, slightly scrobiculate or rugose, (broadly) ovate, 3-4 cm long, about 3 times as long as the internodes, about equaling to much exceeding the sepals, with broad membranaceous margins, obtuse or broadly subacute, ecarinate, sparsely appressed-lepidote, pale-brown (with greenish tips?). Flowers secund at anthesis, distinctly pedicellate (5-8 mm); sepals coriaceous, with even surface, elliptic, ca. 1.5-1.9 (-2.1) x 1.1 cm, with narrow membranaceous margins, obtuse, slightly incurved at the apex, free, fleshy at the base but ecarinate, very sparsely lepidote inside, subdensely and minutely brown-lepidote outside; petals oblong, subtruncate, 2.2-4 cm long, white, spreading above the sepals, bearing 2 ligules at the base; ligules ample, ca. 5 mm long, about half adnate to the petals, free lobe broad, irregularly few-dentate; stamens just exceeding the pistil, slightly shorter than the petals, filaments broad, flat below with thick midvein, attenuate, anthers subbasifixed, ca. 5.5 mm long, linear-sagittate, with short free basal-lobes; ovary ovoid, ca. 4 mm long, abruptly contracted into the subslender style, stigma obscurely lobed. Capsule (slenderly) ellipsoid, 2.5-3.5 cm long, slightly exceeding the bracts, rounded, then abruptly short-beaked.