Guzmania sphaeroidea
Description
Plant acaulescent, flowering to ca. 90 cm long, with a 30-50 cm talldull-green rosette, often tinged with purple-red. Leaves thin, 35-47(-60) cm long, much exceeded by the scape, often wine-purple outside; sheaths distinct, tapering into the blade, ovate-oblong, ca. 9.5-12 x 5 cm, with broad membranaceous margins, densely appressed-lepidote with brown-centered scales, brown to dark castaneous at the base; blades slightly arching, linear, 30-35 x 2.3-3 cm, narrowly rounded or triangular-acute, often apiculate, sparsely appressed-lepidote on both sides, upper side dull-green and the underside often purple-red (often paler at the upperside when dry)Inflorescence erect, laxly and polystichously compound of 5-7 spikes, becoming dense toward the apex, fertile part subglobose or ellipsoid in outline; scape 50-75 cm long, ca. 5 mm in diam., nearly glabrous, in upper part exposed and purple-red; scape bracts erect, the lower ones subfoliaceous and imbricate, the upper ones more ovate, thin, acuminate, much exceeding to much shorter than the internodes, sparsely appressed-lepidote, often purple-red; axis ample, slightly flexuous, angled, glabrous; primary bracts as the upper scape bracts, but more broadly ovate, spreading with the branches, exceeding the short peduncle of the spikes; peduncle 0.5-1 cm long, bearing a prophyl-like bract just beyond the spike, sparsely brown-floccose; spikes subglobose to ellipsoid, 2-3 cm long, 1.4-2 cm in diam., obtuse, very densely and polystichously 7-10(-20)-flowered, with one or a few reduced sterile bracts at the apex; rachis hidden, very short, angled; floral bracts clasping the flower, inflated-convex, incurved, stiff-coriaceous, with even or slightly veined surface, broadly ovate, 0.7-1.1 cm long, about 4 times as long as the internodes, much exceeded by the sepals, broadly rounded or obtuse-acuminate, often torn-incised, ecarinate, very sparsely and obscurely appressed-lepidote, lustrous-green suffused with purple or red. Flowers suberect, contiguous, sessile or pedicel ca. 2 mm long; receptacle obconicca. 2 mm long; sepals firm-coriaceous, with even surface, obovate, 0.9-1.2 cm long, thin at the margins, broadly rounded, acuminate or emarginate at apex, evenly connate for ca. 2-3 mm, strongly curved, bluntly carinate or only thickened in the middle, the posterior ones fleshy alate-carinate in lower half, incurved, appressed-lepidotewith minute brown-centered scales inside, only with a few scales outside; petals slightly divergent at the apex, ligulate, ca. 1.8 cm long, very loosely agglutinate, fleshy, broadly rounded, greenish-yellow or white; stamens included, just exceeded by the pistil, filaments loosely adnate to the petals, straight, flattened, dilated, subterete and about as wide as the anthers toward the apex; anthers dorsifixed (at 1/3-1/2), 2.5-3.2 mm long, sharply sagittate, basal lobes apiculate at maturity, acutish at the apex; ovary triangular-ovoid, 3.5-5 mm long, contracted into the slenderish style, stigma somewhat lobedCapsule cylindric, 2.3-3 cm long, attenuately acute, short-beaked; coma red-brown.
Distribution
E. Bolivar present, Guayana Highlands present, Guyana, S. Colombia present, S. and E. Venezuela present, Southern America: Ecuador (Ecuador present); Peru (Peru present); Venezuela (Venezuela present)
S. Colombia, S. and E. Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru. In Venezuela it has been recorded from various places in the Guayana Highlands of E. Bolivar (near Guyana border), and may be expected in Guyana. 6 collections studied.