Guzmania retusa
Content
Description
Plant acaulescent, flowering ca. 55 cm long, with a ca. 45 cm tall rosette of about 10coriaceous leaves, green, often with purple marks. Leaves (sub-)coriaceous, 30-50 cm long, mostly just exceeded by the inflorescence; sheaths ample but not very distinct, oblong, 15-21 x 6-7 cm, with narrow, whitish, membranaceous margins, sparsely punctulate-lepidote at both sides, concolorous with the blades and paler toward the base; blades erect-ascending, ligulate, 20-30 x 4.5-5.5 cm, broadly rounded or subtruncate, retuse-apiculate at apex, obscurely lepidote and dull-green often tinged with purple at the underside, soon glabrous, deep-green often spotted or with purple margins at the upperside. Inflorescence simple, ca. 45 cm long; scape erect or slightly curving, ca. 40 cm long and 4 mm in diam., glabrous, entirely hidden by bracts; scape bracts imbricate, chartaceous (with veined surface when dry), elliptic or oblong, acuminate, just exceeding to much longer than the internodes, sparsely punctulate-lepidote; spike narrowly ellipsoid, ca. 5 cm long and 2 cm in diam., acute, very densely and polystichously 15-20-flowered; rachis very short and hidden; floral bracts erect, very densely imbricate, coriaceous, with even surface, broadly obovate, 1.5-2.2 cm long, much longer than the internodes and much exceeding the sepals, with broad chartaceous margins, broadly rounded, or the lower ones slightly acuminate, ecarinate, glabrous, deep lustrous-green with paler margins. Flowers erect, sessile; receptacle obconic, ca. 2 mm long; sepals rigid-coriaceous, with even surface, obovate, ca. 1.3 cm long, with thin and paler margins, broadly rounded, connate evenly for ca. 4 mm, posterior ones very bluntly carinate in lower half, sparsely lepidote with brown-centered scales inside, obscurely lepidote at the apex outside; petals thin-coriaceous, agglutinate for ca. 1.2 cm, free lobes elliptic, ca. 0.7 cm long, incurved at the apex, broadly rounded, pale-yellow or whitish; stamens just exceeded by the petals and pistil, filaments indistinguishably united to the whole petal tube, free part strongly dilated, lanceolate, obtuse, whitish with a green midvein, anthers ca. 3 mm long; ovary ovoid, contracted into the slender style, stigma lobed. Capsule unknown, coma brown(?).
Distribution
Guyana, Southern America: Bolivia (Bolivia present); Colombia (Colombia present); Ecuador (Ecuador present); Peru (Peru present); Venezuela (Venezuela present)
Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. It may be expected in Guyana. Only a few collections known, 2 studied: the type and one Bolivian collection.