Tillandsia adpressiflora
Content
Description
Plant acaulescent, flowering 1-1.7 m long, with a dense, 30-50 cm tall crateriform rosette of manycinereous-green leaves. Leaves thin-coriaceous, 40-62 cm long, about equaling or shorter than the scape; sheaths large and distinct, contracted or tapering into the blade, (broadly) ovate, 8.5-17 x 6-10 cm, the lower part densely punctulate-lepidote, dark brown in upper half; blades suberect, very narrowly triangular, 30-50 x 3-5.5 cm, filiform-attenuate, densely appressed-lepidote, but soon becoming glabrous toward the apex inside. Inflorescence laxly bi- or tripinnate, 60-165 cm long, often many and distichously branched, red; scape erect, 30-50 cm long, 6-15 mm in diam., glabrous, nearly or entirely covered by bracts; scape bracts erect, the lower ones densely imbricate, foliaceous, without the blade exceeding the internodes, the upper ones more ovate-oblong, short laminate or apiculate, stiff-chartaceous, mostly shorter than the internodes, glabrous or lepidote toward the apex; axis not at all hidden, elongate, nearly straight, subterete, (sub-) glabrous; primary bracts like the upper scape bracts, clasping the branches, often much shorter than the peduncle, subglabrous; peduncle 3-11 cm long, glabrous, prophyllate and almost or entirely covered by bracts; peduncle bracts as the floral bracts, erect, imbricate, tubular-involute except toward the apex, longer than the internodes; racemes spreading and often ascending, linear (elongate), subterete, 10-50 cm long, laxly and distichously 3-12-flowered, apically with one sterile bract; rachis hidden, but often exposed after anthesis, nearly straight, sharply angled (when dry), glabrous; floral bracts erect, tubular-involute about the flowers and rachis, chartaceous, with veined surface when dry, narrowly lanceolate, 4.5-5.5 cm long, 1-1.5 times as long as the internodes, much exceeding the sepals, acutish, ecarinate, (sub) glabrous, deep red. Flowers erect, subsessile or short pedicellate (to 3 mm long); sepals chartaceous or subcoriaceous, with veined surface when dry, (narrow-) lanceolate, 3.3-4.3 cm long, with broad veinless margins, obscurely obtuse, somewhat incurved at the extreme apex, free, ecarinate, sparsely and minutely lepidote; petals (erect?), ligulate, ca. 5.5 cm long, purple or violet, with oblong blade; stamens included, the longest three exceeding the pistil, filaments straight, very slender, flat, anthers basifixed, sagittate, ca. 4.5 mm long; ovary slenderly ovoid, ca. 6 mm long, tapering into the slender style. Capsule slenderly cylindric, ca. 5.4 cm long, hardly exceeding the bracts, short-beaked.