Guzmania panamensis Cáceres Gonz.

Epiphytic herbs growing on the lower branches of the trees, close to the understory, flowering ca. 67 cm tall with the inflorescence extended. Leaves chartaceous, 40–55 cm long, forming an open rosette, green; leaf sheaths ovate-elliptic, 9–11 × 3–5 cm, with prominent longitudinal veins, with hyaline to membranaceous margins, lightly lepidote on the base with small brown scales in the inside and glabrous on the outside surface. Blades linear, ca. 30–45 × 2.8–3.8 cm (usually wider at the top half), strongly nerved in dry specimens (12–20 veins per cm), attenuate, long acuminate, green, glabrous. Peduncle elongate, erect, slender, 55 cm long, 5 mm in diameter, internodes (2.0–3.3 cm long), about equaling the leaves or slightly longer, hidden by the bracts, lepidote, dark brown. Peduncle bracts erect, much longer than the internodes, imbricate, chartaceous, 4.5–10.0 × 0.7–1.0 cm, bracts: the basal ones presenting a similar color to the leaves and glabrous, the distal ones reddish-green and lepidote, triangular ovate, acuminate to cuspidate. Inflorescence (excluding the peduncle) erect, 11.0 × 2.5 cm, simple, nearly cylindric, with about 25 flowers, polystichous, normally dense, all bracts bearing flowers. Rachis hidden, sparsely lepidote with minute lightly stellate brown to grayish scales. Floral bracts obovate, acuminate, erect, imbricate, globose, 2.0–2.2 × 1.9–2.0 cm (1 cm on the base), much longer than the internodes, shorter than the flowers, lightly nerved, lepidote at both surfaces, red. Flowers 3.6 cm long, sessile. Sepals joined for about one fourth (6–7/25 mm on the base) of their length, 2.5 cm long, 6–7 mm wide, yellow, asymmetric, elliptic, acuminate, coriaceous, erect, slightly fleshy on the base, with a strong central vein, glabrous. Corolla tubular, yellow, not fleshy, erect, 2.7–3.5 cm long (2.0–2.5 cm connate and adnate to the filaments), lobules 0.7–1.0 cm long and free, 0.4–0.6 cm wide, exceeding the sepals in 0.5–10 mm. Stamens alternate, and opposite to the lobule of the corolla, included, filaments all equaling in length, the free portion 3.5–4.0 mm long. Anthers dorsifixed at the middle. Pistil ca. 2.8–3.0 cm long, nearly as long as the petals, exceeding the stamens. Ovary ovate, 5 mm long, 2 mm in diameter, tapering from the base up to the style. Style slender, 2.5 cm long. Stigma trilobate, spreading, each lobe ca. 1.0–1.5 mm long. Capsule 2.5 cm long, 5 mm in diameter. (Fig. 1)

Guzmania panamensis is only known from Santa Fe National Park, Veraguas province in the Cordillera de Talamanca, Panama.