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Family: Bromeliaceae
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Baker, J. Bot. 17:135. 1879 Epiphyte, to about 1 m tall (usually less than 60 cm tall). Leaves forming a rosette, ligulate, strongly narrowed below middle, acurninate or acute at apex, moderately lepidote to glabrous above, dull and densely lepidote below, to 1.2 m long and 2-4 cm wide, drying moderately thin except for somewhat thickened midrib, the margins prominently armed with straight to recurved spines, the basal sheath unarmed, often purplish at least within. Scapes +/- equaling leaves, white-lanate, soon glabrous; scape bracts acuminate, well spaced, bright red, those subtending the branches of the inflorescence spreading; inflorescence usually bipinnate (the lower branches sometimes divided), 10-40 cm long (usually short on BCI), most parts at least at first white-woolly-pubescent; spikes narrow, 8- to 16-flowered; floral bracts ovate, acuminate, 10-13 mm long; flowers sessile; sepals asymmetrical; petals obtuse, ca 1 cm. long; ovary inferior. Berries ca I cm long and 6 mm wide, fleshy, dark bluish-green, contrasting sharply with the lighter green floral bracts; seeds many, narrowly oblong, to 3.5 mm long, white, immersed in a sweet, white, watery matrix, the funiculus slender, sticky. Croat 5826, 10905. Honduras to Colombia. In Panama, known chiefly from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, Colon, Panama, and Darién. known also from tropical wet forest in Colon and CocIé and from premontane moist forest in Panama (Juan Diaz). |