Guzmania plumieri
Content
Description
Plant acaulescent, flowering to over 1.20 m long, with a 50-70 cm tall rosette. Leaves thin, 40-100 cm long, much exceeded by the inflorescence; sheaths ample, tapering into the blades, with membranaceous margins, brown punctulate-lepidote inside, subdensely pale-brown appressed-lepidote outside; blades ligulate, about 7 cm wide, triangular-attenuate, (obscurely) acuminate toward the apex, soon glabrous inside, sparsely appressed-lepidote or subglabrous outside. Inflorescence erect, subdensely to laxly tripinnate or bipinnate, of many polystichously arranged branches, subcylindric; scape 30-60 cm long, 1-1.5 cm in diam., sparsely floccose to glabrous, densely hidden or partly exposed in upper part; scape bracts erect, the lower ones foliaceous, densely imbricate, the upper ones more ovate-lanceolate, triangular attenuate, 1-3 times as long as the internodes, soon glabrous toward the apex; axis exposed, slightly flexuous, terete, sparsely floccose or glabrous; primary bracts as the upper scape bracts, but the upper ones more ovate, with deltoid apiculate apex, about equaling or shorter than the internodes, sparsely lepidote, at least at the base; branches spreading, the lower ones often 4-6-branched; racemes subsessile, often curved, subcylindric, 3-11 cm long, ca. 2 cm in diam., acute or obtuse, laxly to subdensely (at.least the apex) and polystichously few- to over 20-flowered, entirely fertile; rachis exposed, slender, nearly straight or curved, angled, often sparsely floccose; floral bracts more or less secund or spreading with the flowers, strongly curved, thin, with slightly veined surface, rugose when dry, broadly ovate to ovate-oblong, 1.1-1.4 cm long, exceeding the internodes, much exceeded by the sepals, slightly cucullate at the extreme apex, ecarinate, sparsely lepidote; pedicels 3-4 mm long. Flowers more or less secund at anthesis; sepals fleshy below, coriaceous, with slightly veined surface when dry, somewhat asymmetrically ovate-lanceolate, 1.5-1.9 cm long, with a hyaline margin at one side, narrowly obtuse, slightly incurved at the apex, evenly connate for about 2 mm, carinate, sparsely and obscurely lepidote; petals erect, highly connate, 2.3-2.6 cm long, free lobes ovate, obtuse, yellow(?); stamens just included, filaments highly adnate to the petal-tube, flat, anthers dorsifixed (between 1/3 and 1/2), 2.5-3 mm long; pistil just exceeding the filaments or stamens; ovary slenderly ovoid, ca. 5 mm long, abruptly contracted into the slender style. Capsules broadly cylindric, about equaling the sepals (?); coma red-brown.