Aechmea candida
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Aechmea candida
| Ian Hook 09/08. |
Ken Woods, white flowers. |
Oscar Rebiera |
Aechmea candida E. Morren ex Baker, Handb. Bromel. 41. 1889.
Desc from S&D
Plant flowering to 5 dm high.
Leaves 10-12 in a funnelform rosette 20-45 cm long.
Sheaths narrowly subovate, pale-lepidote especially above;
Blades ligulate, broadly rounded and apiculate, 35-55 mm wide, subglabrous above except the apex, densely pale-lepidote and somewhat banded beneath, laxly serrate with dark spines 1 mm long.
Scape erect, slender, white-farinose;
Scape-bracts erect, lance-ovate, acute, entire, membranaceous.
Inflorescence many-flowered, bipinnate to the middle and then simple of sometimes simple throughout, wholly fertile, narrowly pyramidal, white farinose;
Primary bracts like the scape-bracts, shorter than the branches but distinct;
Branches spreading, 4-9-flowered;
rhachis straight or nearly so, slender.
Floral bracts broadly ovate, then attenuate into a spine, 6-8 mm long, entire, the margins free from the rhachis, nerved, membranaceous;
Flowers sessile, subspreading, 15 mm long.
Sepals strongly asymmetric, 3.5 mm long without the 3 mm terminal spine, connate to the middle;
Petals erect, ligulate, obtuse, 10 mm long, white, bearing 2 scales at base;
Stamens included;
Ovary 5 mm long, 2 mm in diameter, slightly trigonous, epigynous tube evident;
placentae subcentral;
ovules obtuse;
berry 8 mm in diameter, white.
Type. Morren Icones (holotype, K), from cultivated material flowered in Liege in 1883 and 1885. Clonotypes: Apr 1884, Liege Hortus s n (LG, photo GH); 30 Nov 1911, Strauss in Berlin Hortus s n (B, photo F 11309).
Distribution. Southern Brazil.
BRAZIL. Santa Catarina: Araguari, Jan 1965, Guimaraes 28 (UPCB, US).
Protologue Baker 1889
28. AECHMEA CANDIDA E. Morren, inedit. (M.D.).
Leaves 10-12 in a utricular rosette, lorate from an ovate base, 12-16 in. long, 1.5 in. broad, plain green on the face, distinctly white-lepidote on the back, rounded to a cusp at the tip, the marginal teeth minute. Peduncle slender, floccose, under a foot long; bract-leaves small, adpressed, lanceolate, pale. Inflorescence moderately dense deltoid bipinnate panicle 4-6 in. long; branches few, spicate, patent, 1-1.5 in. long, 4-6-flowered, subtended by small lanceolate bracts; flower-bracts 0.25 in. long, ovate, with a large cusp, reddish. Ovary with calyx white, 0.5 in. long; sepals ovate, with an erecto-patent brown mucro. Petals shortly protruded. Berrv snow-white, 0.25 in. diam.
Hab. Probably Brazil. Described from two drawings of Professor Morren’s made from plants flowered at Liege in 1883 and 1885. Closely allied to A. coelestis. Introduced by Devansaye in 1881.
Updated 23/01/21
