Tillandsia balbisiana
Content
Description
Plant acaulescent, flowering 20-55 cm tall, with 8-15somewhat cinereous-green leaves mostly exceeding the inflorescence, but often recurving, the sheaths forming a dense ovoid and cinereous pseudobulb. Leaves about 10-20, rigid-coriaceous, (20-)30-50 cm long, mostly longer than the inflorescence; sheaths distinct, contracted into the blades, ovate, greatly inflated-convex, 2.5-7.5 x 1.7-6 cm, with narrow thin margins, very densely (or obscurely) subappressed-lepidote and glabrous at the extreme base, pale-ferrugineously lepidote inside, often with a purple-red band at the margins; blades strongly recurved, very narrowly triangular, often involute at the margins (at least when dry), 17-45 x 0.7-1.8 cm, filiform-attenuate, very densely (sub-) appressed-lepidote throughout. Inflorescence densely bipinnate of 2-6 spikes or simple, (4-)9-17 cm long; scape erect, 13-30 cm long, ca. 4 mm in diam., glabrous, densely covered by bracts; scape bracts imbricate, chartaceous, ovate, with foliaceous to filiform blade, excluding the blade exceeding the internodes, densely appressed-lepidote at both sides, except near the bases, cinereous; axis mostly short, but partly exposed, almost straight, rugose when dry, glabrous; primary bracts as the upper scape bracts, but more caudate, exceeding and hiding the sterile bases of the spikes; spikes erect, subsessile (sometimes the apical spike with bracteate peduncle), linear-lanceolate, complanate, 3-7 x 0.8-1.1 cm, acute, with 1-2 imbricate sterile bracts at the base and apex, densely and distichously 3-10-flowered; rachis hidden at anthesis, flexuous, angled, glabrous; floral bracts imbricate, coriaceous, with even surface or slightly veined at the apex, ovate, 1.3-1.9 cm long, more than twice as long as the internodes, about as long as the sepals or slightly shorter, thin at the margins, obtuse or narrowly rounded and apiculate, two-angled below and fleshy carinate at the apex, sparsely appressed-lepidote in upper half and glabrous below, cinereous-green to coral-red. Flowers tubular-erect, sessile; receptacle obconic, ca. 2 mm long; sepals very thin-coriaceous, with even surface, ovate-oblong, 1-1.7 cm long, with broad veinless margins, broadly rounded, posterior ones connate for ca. 2 mm and sharply carinate for most of their length, anterior ones nearly free and ecarinate, glabrous or sparsely and obscurely lepidote inside toward the base; petals thin, ligulate, ca. 3.5 cm long, often pale-violet; stamens much exceeding the petals, filaments thin and hyaline, straight, flat below, exceeding part dilated, subterete and pale-violet, anthers dorsifixed nearly at the middle, 6-7 mm long, sagittate, but free basal lobes less than 0.5 mm long, bluntly apiculate; pistil just exceeded by the stamens (?); ovary slenderly ovoid, tapering into the slender style, stigmas spathulate, fimbriate, twisting-conduplicate. Capsule cylindric, ca. 4 cm long, narrowly obtuse, short-beaked.
Distribution
Delta Amacuro present, Guyana, Northern America: Florida (Florida present), Southern America: Colombia (Colombia present); Venezuela (Venezuela present ‒ present)
Florida, West Indies and Mexico to Colombia and Venezuela. It may be expected in Guyana. 14 collections studied from Venezuela, including Delta Amacuro.