Orthophytum lymanianum Pereira & Penna n. sp.
Plant : flowering about 1 m high.
Leaves : basal leaves about 60 cm long.
Sheaths : narrowly triangular, about 50 mm long, 60 mm
wide, glabrous, margin minutely serrate over the base.
Blades : narrowing to the apex, ending in a spine,
about 55 long, 3 cm maximum width, densely white lepidote underneath, scales
much adpressed forming a membrane, glabrous superiorly, spiny margin, bearing
antrorse spines, at the base dense, 3 mm long, more sparse and decreasing to
apex.
Scape : erect, 66 cm long, about 1 cm diameter,
densely flocose at the base, becoming
glabrous, 5 cm long internodes.
Scape bracts : foliaceous.
Inflorescence : with many spikes, interrupted, about 30 cm
long.
Primary bracts : narrowly ovate, much acuminate, spiny margin,
scaly-white on both sides, the inferior exceeding or equaling the spikes, the
superior much smaller.
Spikes : about 8, cylindrical, about 50 mm long, 25 mm
diameter, sessile and strobiliform
Floral bracts : ovate, acuminate, 15 mm long, curved,
lepidote underneath, above glabrous , with spiny margin.
Flowers : 15 mm long, sessile.
Sepals : lanceolate,
10 mm long, spinescent, lepidote underneath, above glabrous , posteriorly alate -carinate, the
wings descending to the ovary, ecarinate to the end.
Petals : petals and stamens lost in our specimen.
Ovary : complanate, 3 mm long, lepidote.
Placentae : fixed in the middle of the locules.
Ovules : obtuse.
Typus : Brazil, Bahia State, exact origin unknown,
flowering in cultivation in
January 1968, collected by Roberto Burle Marx, Holotypus
at Herbarium Bradeanum, HB. Bahia
State, between Amargosa and Milagres, collected by Luiz K. Correia de Araujo,
nš 35, January 1974, flowering in cultivation in January 1981.
Comments : this species is related to Orthophytum
sanctum L.B. Smith , but differs in
its cylindrical spikes, superior primary bracts shorter than the spikes,
smaller floral bracts and sepals.
Published : in Bradea, Herbarium Bradeanumīs bulletin,
volume IV, nš 1 . 18th March 1983, Pg.
3 - 4, figure 3, Pg. 7 .
Complementary comments : species known only by specimens
mentioned above.
We dedicate this new species to our friend, Professor Dr. Lyman Smith for his remarkable work on Bromeliaceae.