Z HANDBOOK OF BROMELIACE^. 



1. K. PlumieriE. Morrenin Belg. Hort. 1872, 131; Antoine 

 Brom. 35, t. 21-22 (M.D.).* Bromelia Karatas Linn. (Plum. Amer. 

 Gen. t. 33) ; Jacq. Amer. Pict. t. 260, fig. 24; Hort. Vind. i. t. 32-33, 

 iii. t. 74. Nichilarium Karatas Lemaire. — Acaulesceut. Leaves 

 30-40 in a dense rosette, rigid, spreading, ensiform, 4-8 ft. long, 

 li-2 in. broad low down, narrowed gradually to the tip, green and 

 glabrous on the face, persistently white-lepidote and finely lineate 

 on the back, armed with large pungent hooked marginal prickles. 

 Flowers about 50 in a dense sessile central capitulum, at first 

 3-4 in. finally 6-8 in. diam., surrounded by reduced ensiform inner 

 leaves tinged red ; flower-bracts scariose, oblanceolate, 2|-3 in. 

 long. Ovary cylindrical-trigonous. If in. long, clothed, like the 

 bracts and sepals, with loose brown tomentum ; sepals linear, 

 permanently erect, an inch long. Petals reddish, glabrous, 

 exserted |~|- in. beyond the tip of the sepals, united in a tube 

 towards the base. Fruit 3-4 in. long, 1 in. diam., pale yellow, 

 with an eatable white pulp, tapering from the middle to both ends. 

 Seeds globose, dull brown, vertically compressed, ^ in. diam. 



Hab. Tropical America, especially the West Indies. First noticed by 

 Morison in 1680. There are two good figures in Plumier's unpublished series 

 and a specimen from Jacquin at the British Museum. It is fully described by 

 Hughes, in his ' Natural History of the Island of Barbados,' published in 1750, 

 p. 232, under the name of " The Pen-gwyn. Latin Karatas." There are also 

 two good figures in Plumier's Bot. Amer. inedit., vol. iii. t. 42 — 43 (1689 — 

 1697). Here belong also the Caraguata Acanga of Piso, Hist. Nat. Bras. 88 

 (1648), and Mexocotl sen Mangulei of Morison's Hist. Plant, sect. iv. t. 22 

 (1680), the two latter cited as synonyms under Bromelia Acanga by Linnaeus. 

 Mr. Jenman tells me it is called " Karwata " by the Indians of Demarara. 

 Described mainly from a plant that flowered at Kew in the autumn of 1887. K. 

 Lagopus E. Morren, inedit. (M.D.) seems to be a form of K. Plumieri. 



1.^ K. NiDus-puELLiE Andre. — Acaulescent. Leaves rigid, ensi- 

 form, 2-|~3 ft. long, above an inch broad at the middle, nearly 

 naked, green, the inner becoming bright red at the flowering-time, 

 armed with distant, much-hooked spines. Inflorescence a flat- 

 topped central capitulum ; outer bracts broad ovate, red at the 

 base, lilac upwards ; inner rose-red, linear, as long as the flowers. 

 Ovary tomentose, whitish, above 2 in. long including the pedicel. 

 Sepals linear-lanceolate, li-2 in. long. Corolla with a short tube 

 and lilac oblong segments tomentose at the tip, about as long as the 

 calyx. Fruit 2 in. long, brown and eatable at maturity. Seeds 

 brown, as large as a pea. 



Hab. Slope of the western Andes of New Granada towards the Rio 

 Magdalena, Andre 1836. 



2. K. Legkell^ E. Morren in Belg. Hort. 1872, 129, t. 11-13 



(M.D.). — Acaulescent. Leaves 30-40 in a dense rosette, ensiform, 

 rigid, spreading, reaching a length of 5-6 feet, 1|~2 in. broad low 

 down, tapering gradually to the point, green on the face, finely 

 albo-lepidote and striated on the back, armed with large hooked 

 pungent marginal prickles. Flowers 100 or more in a dense sessile 

 central capitulum 3-4 in. diam., overtopped by many bright red 



* M.D. means that there is an original drawing of the plant in the Morren 

 collection, now at Kew. 



