NO. I BROMELIACEAE OF BRAZIL — SMITH I3 



becoming more or less glabrous with age ; scape slender, erect, white- 

 flocculose when young; scape-bracts lanceolate, acuminate to a thick 

 pungent apex, elsewhere membranaceous, erect, about equaling the 

 internodes, the lowest serrulate ; inflorescence simple, laxly cylindric, 

 5-8 cm. long, white-flocculose ; floral bracts broadly ovate, acute, thin, 

 the lowest about equaling the ovary, the others much shorter ; flowers 

 polystichous, sessile, divergent; sepals yellow, 4 mm. long exclusive 

 of the slender i mm. mucro, connate for nearly half their length, 

 the free lobes broadly ovate and rounded ; petals 9 mm. long, white, 

 bearing two lacerate scales above the base, blades elliptic, obtuse, 

 stamens included; ovary broadly obconic, 5-6 mm. long; epigynous 

 tube shallowly crateriform, placentae apical, ovules apiculate. 



Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, No. 1952441, collected on trees in 

 dense forest, between Ituagu and Jequie, State of Baia, Brazil, altitude 480 

 meters, Oct. 18, 1948, by M. B. Foster (No. 2450). 



Aechmea blanchetiana (Baker) L. B. Smith, comb. nov. 

 Tillandsia blanchetiana Baker, Handb. Bromel. 182. 1889. 



Aechmea cariocae L. B. Smith, nom. nov. 



Chevalieria comata Mez in DC. Monogr. Phan. 9: 153. 1896. In part: as 

 to description but not as to basonym. 



Aechmea castanea L. B. Smith, sp. nov. Figure hi 



A Ae. cariocae L. B. Smith, cui affinis, bracteis florigeris brunneo- 

 lepidotis, sepalis glabris minutissime armatis differt. 



Leaves many in a spreading rosette, 1.7 m. long, covered on both 

 sides with a membrane of coalesced scales, thick, coriaceous, sheaths 

 castaneous-lepidote, blades linear, acute with a stout brown apical 

 cusp, 7 cm. wide, buff-lepidote, subdensely serrate with ascending 

 brown teeth 2 mm. long ; scape over 35 cm. long, 2 cm. in diameter, 

 brown-flocculose ; scape-bracts erect, very densely imbricate, their 

 sheaths elliptic, 8 cm. long, dark castaneous, covered with brown 

 appressed scales but becoming glabrous, their blades ligulate, acute, 

 to 10 cm. long, entire, subcoriaceous ; inflorescence simple, densely 

 strobilate with about 15 rows of flowers, slenderly conical, 29 cm. 

 long, 10 cm. in diameter ; floral bracts cymbiform, enfolding the base 

 of the flower, thick, woody, the truncate rugose apex densely brown- 

 lepidote, the terminal mucro not more than 3 mm. long; flowers 

 spreading; sepals free, strongly asymmetric with a broad wing, 

 16 mm. long, coriaceous, thick, glabrous, the delicate mucro less than 



