52 SYNOPSIS OF TILLANDSIES. 
put sometimes 14 in. or more. The spike is thick, cylindrical, 
densely fruited, of far more uniform length than the > 
seldom exceeding 23-3 in. 
be taken in selecting mature fruit, it will be found that 
the deneless do not alter much in drying; perhaps the keeled 
lateral ridges are usually a little more appeal in the dried state, 
ut the reverse is certainly sometimes the Dr. Boswell, in 
his admirable account of P. /ucens in the third edition of ‘ Rigs 
drupelets of which attails their full size ipa before they are fully 
mature, 
This is not the ‘pind’ or central form of the lucens group aggre: 
gated by Chamisso and Schlectendal into one speci ies, P. Proteu 
The type will probably be So d in the little-known Zizii- fom 
called P. coriaceus by Nolte. Palmontologists may Lesion be able. 
to tell us whether P. lucens has been found in as ancient beds as 
heterophyllus or Zizii, forms already traced to periods scnieliatsls 
preceding the glacial cold. 
SYNOPSIS OF TILLANDSIEZ. 
By J. G. Baxer, F.R.S., F.L.8. 
One of the last things that Mr. Bentham said to me, when he 
Achmea and Pitcairnia, for they are in very great confusion.” At 
the time he spoke I had no thought of doing this, as I considered 
that they were in the hands of Professor Morren. But now that 
p 
to bing sapether the very ; Widely scattered material bearing on the 
subjec 8 the genera as they stand in Bentham and 
Hooker’s ‘ Genera tarum,’ and under them enumerate 
and 
a ae the species as fully as the material to which I have access 
WHt perm 
The Tetionieei as a suborder of Bromeliacea, are clearly 
marked off by their entire leaves, and free coriaceous capsules 
splitting septicidally into three valves, filled with minute seeds, of 
which the sore splits oh into innumerable fine flexuose threads. 
As this structure is peenliar to them, a single seed is quite enough 
to allocate a plant. 
