Bromeliads in Australia - Aechmea maculata

Was Aechmea maculata now Ae. lamarchei
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Was Aechmea maculata now Ae. lamarchei
Note:
1. Many plants in circulation labelled Ae. maculata are probably Ae. Brillig. See lower on this page.
Particularly those with light green leaves with bold red/brown bands on underside.
The description of maculata usually show all red leaves with no markings.
2. Plants grown in USA and Australia in the 1980’s as Aechmea lamarchei var rubra are really A. maculata (superceded by note.4)
3. The 1955 description of maculata by L.B.Smith, below, did NOT treat this as a synonym of lamarchei.
4. The current (since 2010) Taxon Register DOES treat maculata as a synonym of lamarchei.

Ae. maculata from Derek Butcher's files.

Aechmea maculata L. B. Smith, Smithson. Misc. Collect. 126: 15, 227, fig. 107. 1955.
A Ae. bromeliifolia (Rudge) Baker, cui valde affinis, vaginis foliorum et scapi bracteis purpureo-maculatis, bracteis florigeris apiculatis differt.
NOT following De Faria, Wendt & Brown in Bot Journ. Linn. Soc. 162: 10-18. 2010 who treat this as synonym of A. lamarchei – see notes under A. lamarchei
Desc from S&D
Caudex 6-9 dm long; flowering shoot 45 cm high.
Leaves rosulate, 27 cm long;
Sheaths broadly elliptic, 13 cm long, covered with white appressed scales, densely and coarsely purple-spotted above, serrate toward apex;
Blades ligulate, acute with the extreme apex reflexed, 4 cm wide, flat, white-lepidote beneath, soon glabrous above, laxly serrate with brown spreading teeth 2 mm long, concolorous.
Scape erect, 7 mm in diameter, sparsely white-flocculose;
Scape-bracts elliptic, thin, roseate, the lower ones erect, about equaling the internodes, white-lepidote, serrulate at apex, the upper ones divergent, imbricate and massed below the inflorescence, involute, glabrous.
Inflorescence simple, strobilate, cylindric, 4 cm long, 2 cm in diameter, white-flocculose. Floral bracts suborbicular, retuse and then apiculate, 10 mm long, thick and bicarinate with thin apex and margins, dark brown.
Sepals 8 mm long, connate for 3.5 mm, the free lobes asymmetric, subquadrate, ecarinate, unarmed;
Petals 17 mm long, bearing fimbriate scales near the middle of the claw, the blades elliptic;
Stamens included; epigynous tube 1 mm long; placentae apical; ovules caudate.
Type. Foster 561 (holotype, GH; isotype, US), Pico de Piedade, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 10 Jul1940.
Distributioin. Known from the type collection only. Cultivated, 20 Aug 1952, Reitz 4770 (HBR).
Plant grown in USA and Australia in the 1980’s as Aechmea lamarchei var rubra is really A. maculata.

Ae. lamarchei var rubra Kerry Tate 09/18

Ian Hook, 07/04 BSA meeting as lamarchei.

Ian Hook 11/03, Ex. Rurby Ryde. As maculata but possibly 'Brillig'. "Hardy, pups readily, long lasting flower spike with brilliant changing colours, outside, full sun, long spike, pink bracts then purple, Yellow flower then black petals."

Andy Staelens 03/05 as maculata but possibly 'Brillig'.