Aechmea dactylina Baker

Aechmea dactylina Baker, Jour. Bot. 17: 161. 1879
Plant over S dm. high; leaves 5-14 dm. long; sheaths very large, elliptic, pale-punctulatelepidote; blades ligulate, acute, pungent, 45-75 mm. wide, rigid, pale-green, armed with straight spreading spines up to 1 cm. long; scape erect, elongate, up to 1 cm. in diameter, white-flocculose, becoming glabrous; scape-bracts erect, elliptic, acute or acuminate, pale-green or the upper ones sometimes red; inflorescence amply paniculate, subthyrsoid, 25-60 cm. long; axes angular, white-arachnoid; primary bracts spreading or reflexed, narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, much shorter than the axillary branches, flaccid, bright-red, sparsely lepidote or glabrous; branches divergent to spreading, the lower ones usually divided and bearing 2-8 spikes, up to 25 cm. long; spikes linear, acute, 5-16 cm. long, 10-16 mm. wide, strongly complanate, densely distichous-flowered; floral bracts all fertile, erect, densely imbricate, very broadly ovate or suborbicular, 14-17 mm. long, 1{>-15 mm. wide, equaling or exceeding the sepals, mucronulatc with free entire margins, sharply carinate toward the apex, coriaceous, glabrous, finely nerved near the margins; flowers sessile, 17 mm. long; sepals lanceolate, acute, wing-carinate, 7-8 mm. long, connate for 1 mm.; petals ligulate, acute, yellow; stamens included; ovary sharply 3-anglcd, 7 mm. long, glabrous, the epigynous tube short; ovules few, borne at the top of the cell, caudate.
Type locautv: Chagres, Panama.
Distribution: Costa Rica and Panama; also in Colombia.

Aechmea dactylina is a plant species in the genus Aechmea. This species is native to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador.