Tillandsia cuatrecasasii
Content
Description
Plant acaulescent, flowering up to 1 m tall, with a dense, 40-50 cm tall rosette of manycinereous leaves. Leaves thin-coriaceous, 40-60 cm long, much exceeded by the scape; sheaths ample and distinct, contracted into the blade, oblong, inflated-convex, 15-19 x 8-10 cm, densely and minutely appressed-lepidote, dark purple-brown inside except toward the base, paler outside; blades erect or slightly arching, very narrowly triangular or narrowly triangular-ovate, 22-38 x 4.5-5 cm, attenuately subacute or acuminate, densely appressed-lepidote and cinereous-green outside, less lepidote and more pale-green inside. Inflorescence (sub-) densely bipinnate of 10 to many polystichously arranged spikes; scape erect, 37-65 cm long, 8-12 mm in diam., glabrous, densely covered by bracts; scape bracts erect, densely imbricate, the lower ones foliaceous, the upper ones more ovate-lanceolate, triangular-attenuate, many times longer than the internodes, sparsely lepidote or glabrous at the base to cinereous-lepidote at the apex; axis hidden or exposed, slightly geniculate, angled, glabrous, deep-red; primary bracts as the upper scape bracts, (sub-) spreading with the spikes, about equaling the spikes with the blade, the upper ones soon smaller and bladeless, more elliptic and apiculate, much shorter than the spikes; spikes very short-pedunculate, (linear-) lanceolate, complanate, 5-12 x 1.7-2.7 cm, acutish, densely and distichously 8-12-flowered, with 1-2 sterile and reduced bracts at the base and apex; rachis hidden, slightly flexuous, quadrangular, glabrous; floral bracts erect, densely imbricate, thin-coriaceous, with faintly veined surface at the apex when dry, elliptic, 2.4-4 cm long, about 4 times as long as the internodes, much exceeding the sepals, rounded (obtuse) and apiculate, finely carinate, much curved, glabrous or appressed-lepidote at the apex. Flowers sessile; sepals thin-coriaceous, with faintly veined surface, (obovate-) lanceolate, 2-2.6 cm long, with broad membranaceous margins, broadly rounded, somewhat incurved at the extreme apex, posterior ones less than half connate and distinctly carinate, sparsely lepidote on both sides, glabrous toward the apex; petals thin, ligulate, rounded, violet; stamens included, about equaling the pistil, filaments flat, membranaceous, anthers basifixed, sagittate, over 3 mm long; ovary slenderly ovoid, ca. 6 mm long, contracted into the slender style, stigmas linear. Capsule broadly cylindric, ca. 3 cm long, just exceeding the bracts, abruptly short-beaked.