Orthophytum
lemei Pereira
& Penna n. sp.
Plant : flowering about 50 cm high, stoloniferous.
Leaf
: basal leaf
26 cm long.
Sheaths
: inconspicuous, 10 mm long, 40 mm wide,
membranaceous, glabrous, transversally plicate, margin finely spinose.
Blades : narrowly triangular, acuminate, 25 cm long, maximum width 35 mm,
thick, coriaceous, dark green, caniculate, densely nerved bellow, with
prominent nerves, spiny apex, densely white-scaly, scales very adpressed,
forming a membrane, spiny margin, spines to 3 mm long, directed downward.
Scape
: erect, about 15 cm long, 7 mm diameter on living
plants, red, first white-flocose and later glabrous.
Scape
Bracts : similar to basal leaves, never sheathed.
Inflorescence : long, interrupted, 30 cm long, red rachis, first white-flocose and
later glabrous.
Primary
bracts : the lower reaching the scape bracts, exceeding the spikes, the superior ovalate,
acuminate, much shorter than the spikes.
Spikes : sub-globose, 20 mm long, 15 mm diameter, sub-sessile, strobiliform .
Floral
bracts : oval, spiny-acuminate, about 10 mm long,
carinate, nerved, glabrous and vinaceous, margins from almost entire to
pectinate-spinous, reaching the sepal apex.
Flowers
: 15 mm long.
Sepals : lanceolate-spinous, 9 mm long, first very carinate, then winged, the
wings encircling the ovary, then ecarinate.
Petals
: spatulate, 12 mm long , white, obtuse apex, bearing
2 scales at the base, scales well fringed.
Stamens : alternate to petals free, opposite shorter, adnate to the petals.
Anthers : linear, 2 mm long, obtuse, mucronate.
Ovary
: sub-globose, 3 mm long.
Placentae
: fixed to the apex of the locule.
Ovules
: obtuse.
Typus : Brazil, Bahia State, Palmeira -Mucugê Road, collected by Elton M. C.
Leme, nº 440, Jeffrey Kent, R. J. Fraser and Luiz A. M. Silva,
on
the 13th January 1983 . Holotypus at the
Herbarium
Bradeanum HB .
Comments : This species is similar to Orthophytum sanctum L.B. Smith , differing chiefly in the leaf
blades and primary bracts with both sides covered with white adpressed scales,
superior primary bracts much shorter than the spikes, floral bracts and sepals
smaller. It is like Orthophytum disjunctum L.B. Smith
too, differing in the same characteristics.
Published : in Bulletin nº 62, February
1985, from the Municipal Botanical Museum of Curitiba, Paraná State, Brazil, ,
Pg. 3 and 4, figure 4, pg. 8.
Complementary
comments : we know this
species
only from the original collection and we have no plants in cultivation.