Tillandsia anceps
Content
Description
Plant acaulescent, 16-25(-45) cm tall, with a small spreading or crateriform rosette of manylustrous and mostly red-striate leaves. Leaves thin, 15-30(-35) cm long, nearly always exceeding or equaling the inflorescence, densely and minutely lepidote; sheaths distinct, abruptly contracted into the blade, obovate-oblong, broadly convex toward the apex, 2.5-4.4 x 2.0-1.5(-2.5) cm; blade arching, very narrowly triangular, 15-22 x 1-2.5 cm, attenuately acute, pungent. Inflorescence simple, erect, 10-20 cm long; scape 4-6 cm long, ca. 4 mm in diam., concealed by the leaves and its bracts; scape bracts erect, densely imbricate, subcoriaceous, ovate, the lower ones with erect linear blades, the upper ones more apiculate, much exceeding the internodes, densely punctulate-lepidote, pale lustrous-green; spike obovate-lanceolate, strongly complanate, 8-13 x 3-4 cm, acute or rounded, with a few reduced and imbricate sterile bracts at the base and apex, densely and distichously (4-)8-15-flowered; rachis entirely hidden, flexuous, alate-angled when dry, glabrous; floral bracts erect, incurved toward the apex, densely imbricate, stiff-coriaceous, with even surface, (triangular-) ovate, 2.6-3.5 cm long, about 4 times as long as the internodes, exceeding the sepals, apex extended alate-carinate, subglabrous, lustrous-green or pale-lilac. Flowers sessile, contiguous; receptacle obconic, ca. 2 mm long, bluntly angled; sepals subcoriaceous, with even surface, narrowly lanceolate, 2.3-2.7 cm long, with thin veinless margins, acute, free, glabrous, posterior ones with thick midvein, becoming bluntly angled at the base (carinate when dry); petals to 5.5 cm long, spathulate, the blade spreading, oblong, acute, blue or pale-rose; stamens all alike, deeply included, exceeding the pistil, filaments flaccid, straight, flat and very broad, forming a tube (fused? at the base for 1-3 mm or loosely conglutinate), attenuate, anthers sub basifixed, sagittate (?), ca. 6 mm long; ovary broadly cylindric, ca. 5 mm long, contracted into the slender style. Capsule cylindric, to ca. 3 cm long, equaling the sepals, attenuate and beaked.
Distribution
Amazonian Brazil present, C. America present, Guianas present, Southern America: Ecuador (Ecuador present)
C. America to Ecuador and Amazonian Brazil, in- cluding the Guianas. 37 collections studied (3 — GU, 8 — SU, 20 — FG).