Vriesea
serrana Pereira
& Penna n. sp.
Subgenus Vriesea section Vriesea .
Plant
: flowering
about 1,5 m high.
Leaves : ligulate, about 90 cm long, rosulate, forming a crateriform tank at
the base.
Sheaths : narrowly ovate, 20 cm long, 10 cm wide, castaneous and brunneo-
lepidote at both sides.
Blades : very triangular, about 70 cm
long, 7 cm maximum width, narrowing to apex, very acute apex, inconspicuous
lepidote, green, never marked with transversal lines.
Scape : 60 cm long, 2 cm diameter on living plants.
Scape
bracts : foliaceous, concealing the scape.
Inflorescence : 70 cm long, erect, bipinnate, narrowly pyramidal.
Primary
bracts : foliaceous, reddish, shorter than the
branches but longer than the sterile
bases of the branches.
Branches : sub-erect, about 20 cm long, bearing about 6 flowers, peduncle about
5 cm long, bearing a bicarinate sterile bract at the base.
Rachylla
: flexuous, green, internodes 15 to 20 mm long, 2 mm
diameter in living plants.
Floral
bracts : ovate, 30 mm long, lightly obtuso-carinate,
yellow, acute apex, equaling or exceeding the sepals.
Flowers
: sub-erect, 40 mm long, never secund.
Sepals : elliptic, 24 mm long, acute apex, glabrous, yellowish.
Petals : linear-spathulate, 35 mm long, yellow, rotundate apex, bearing 2
entire scales at the base.
Stamens : shorter than the petals.
Style : 28 mm long, equaling the anthers.
Pedicels : 9 mm long.
Ovary
: pyramidal, 4 mm long.
Ovules : caudate.
Typus : Brazil, Rio de Janeiro State, Petrópolis, Cascatinha, collected by Ivo
de Azevedo Penna, nº 27, on the 21th January, 1984. Holotypus at
Herbarium Bradeanum HB .
Comments : this species is related to Vriesea altodaserrae L.B. Smith , but differs by its primary
bracts
, all exceeding the sterile base of the branches,
floral
bracts equaling or exceeding the sepals, and leaf-
blades
not marked with transversal lines.
Published
: in Bradea, Herbarium Bradeanum´s bulletin, volume
IV, nº 19 , 26th March 1985, Pg.137, figure 2, Pg. 138.
Complementary comments : we have in cultivation one specimen from the original collection, at the moment (2001) not flowering, and we are adding drawings and color photos from the typus. The original collection site has been totally destroyed by urban expansion, but we have seen many plants being sold at commercial nurseries whose origin could not be determined with certainty.