苞叶光萼荷

Aechmea bracteata (Sw.) Griseb. Fl. Brit W. Ind. 592. 1864.
Bromelia bracteata Sw. Prodr. 56. 1788.
.iechmea Schiedeana Schlecht. Linnaea, 18: 437. 1844.
Aechmea laxiflora Benth. Bot. Voy. Sulph. 173. 1846.
Hoplophytum braclealum K. Koch, Wochenschr. Gartn. 3: 306. 1860.
Hohenbergia laxiflora Baker, Refug. Bot. pi. 284. 3. 1871.
Hohenbergia bracteata Baker. Refug. Bot. pi. 284. 3. 1871.
Aechmea regularis Baker, Jour. Bot. 17: 229. 1879.
Aechmea macracantha Brongn.; Andr6. 111. Hortic. 27: 59. 1880.
Aechmea Barleei Baker. Gard. Chron. II. 20: 102. 1883.
Aechmea isabellina Baker, Jour. Bot. 28: 305. 1890.
? Titlandsia spinosa Sess6 & Moc. Fl. Mex. ed. 2, 81. 1894.
Plant 5 to over 17 dm. high; leaves about 20 in a dense utriculate ellipsoid rosette, from 3 to over 10 dm. long; sheaths elliptic, very large and conspicuous, densely and finely brownlepidote; blades ligulate, from acuminate to rounded-apiculate, 3-10 cm. wide, coriaceous, pale-green, concolorous, soon glabrous above, densely white-appressed-lepidote beneath, coarsely repand-serrate, the teeth lax, spreading, straight or uncinate, up to 1 cm. long; scape erect, relatively slender in most cases, finely white-lanate at first ; scape-bracts erect or the upper ones divergent to cun-ed-spreading, usually imbricate, lanceolate, acute, entire, bright-red; inflorescence amply paniculate, thyrsoid or pyramidal with the lower branches elongate and much divided, 10-65 cm. long; axes red, white-pubescent; lower primary bracts like the scapebracts, sometimes exceeding the axillary branches, the upper like the floral bracts and as small ; spikes spreading, laxly and distichously 41 7-flowered ; rhachis slender, compressed, angled, flexuous; floral bracts spreading, broadly ovate, acute, aciculose, 5-8 mm. long, much exceeded by the sepals, about equaling the internodes, more or less prominently nerved, the margins free and entire; flowers sessile, divergent; sepals triangular-ovate, strongly asymmetric, mucronulate, 3-4 mm. long, white-pubescent, soon glabrous; petals linear, up to 1 cm. long, yellow, bearing 2 coarsely dentate scales well above the base; stamens included, the second series shortconnate with the petals; ovary stoutly ellipsoid or subglobose, enlarged in fruit, white-pubescent; oules borne near the top of the cell, caudate.
Type locality: Yucatan.
Distribution: Mexico, British Honduras, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica; also in Colombia.