267 
more restricted areas, such as British Honduras, the name 
“ Silk Grass’ appears to be more commonly used than “ Pita,”’ 
but this apparently also has an equally wide application, and 
is used more in respect to the fibre than to any particular kind 
of plant which produces it. 
Mr. M. T. Dawe(?) has recently raised the question as to the 
identification of the Colombian plants, from which Pita fibre 
is obtained. The material supplied to Kew was without flowers 
and consequently could not be definitely determined, but so far 
as could be ascertained these specimens seemed to support the 
view that the Colombian Pita plant is Ananas macrodontes 
orr. 
Further specimens of a plant known as Pita have been received 
through the courtesy of Mr. C. E. Dixon, who forwarded to Kew 
a few flowers and one bracteole collected from the Pita groves 
in the Chiriguana district of Colombia. These show that the 
plant is a species of Bromelia and is identical with Aechmea 
Magdalenae André (Chevalliera Magdalenae André), of which 
only leaves and young fruit were previously known, and of which 
a specimen at Kew collected at Balao, Colombia, by Eggers, in 
January, 1892, quite agrees with Dawe’s photograph of the 
Pita fruit, and is accompanied by leaves 10 ft. long and 4 inches 
wide. Mez in his monograph of the Bromeliaceae, p. 284, notes 
this species as “‘ Pita Ecuadorensibus (ex Eggers).” 
André admits in a note in his Bromeliaceae Andreanae that his 
specimens, which have not been found at Kew, may have been 
mixed so far as leaves and flowers are concerned, and the leaves 
he figures on his plate 3 do not seem to agree with those received 
from Eggers in having more numerous and less robust prickles. 
Mr. Dawe (Tropical Life, 1920, p. 182) describes the flowers as 
blue, while Mr. Dixon in his letter describes them as light yellow. 
In other respects Mr. Dawe’s description agrees with that of 
Aechmea Magdalenae, which must now be called Bromelia 
Magdalenae, the flowers of which are described below. 
Bromelia Magdalenae C. H. Wright. Aechmea Magdalenae 
André, Bromel. Andreanae, p. 7; Baker, Handb. Bromel, p. 65 
Mez, Monogr. Bromel, p. 284.  Chevalliera Magdalenae André, 
Enum. Bromel., p. 3, and Bromel. Andreanae, p. 7, t. 3 (excl. leaf ¢). 
petalorum inserta; filamenta 1-3 cm. longa, complanata; 
antherae prope basin dorsifixae, 1-1 cm. longae, acutae, 
sagittatae ; pollinis granula subglobosa, eporosa, membrana 
crassa instructa. Ovarium breviter triangulare, stylus staminibus 
aequilongus; rami 6 mm. longi, membranaceo-alati. 
(1) Tropical Life, Dec. 1920, Jan. 1921, May 1922. 
