334 
Alliance IV. BROMELIALES. 
Essential Character. — Calyx usually calycine, sometimes petaline. Petals petaline. 
Stamens 6 or more. Albumen mealy. 
Order CCXLI. BROMELIACEiE. The Pine-Apple Tribe. 
Bbomelli^, Juss. Gen. 49. (1789) ; Diet. Sc. Nat. 5. 347. (1817). — BaoMELiACEiE, Lindl. 
inBot. Reg. fol. 1068. (1827) ; DC. and Duly, 472. (1828) ; Bartl. Ord. Nat. 46. 
(1830) ; Schult.f. in Rom. and Sch. Syst. Veg'. vol. 7. (1830). 
Essential Character. — Calyx 3 -parted or tubular, persistent, more or less cohering 
with the ovary, usually herbaceous, sometimes coloured. Petals 3, coloured, withering or 
deciduous, equal or unequal. Stamens 6, or more, inserted into the tube of the calyx and 
corolla. Ovary 3-celled, many-seeded; style single; stigma 3-lobed, or entire, often 
twisted. Fruit capsular or succulent, 3-celled, many- seeded. Seeds numerous ; embryo 
taper, recurved, or minute, lying in the base of mealy dbumen. — Stemless or short-stemmed 
plants, their stems sometimes composed of fibrous roots consolidated round a slender 
centre, with rigid channelled leaves often covered with cuticular scales, and spiny at the 
edge or point. Fruit sometimes eatable. 
Affinities. Stratiotes among Hydrocharacese has so much the foliage of 
this order as to render it probable, taking the fructification also into account, 
that the nearest affinity of the Pine Apple tribe is with the former. It is, 
however, essentially distinguished by its seeds having mealy albumen. This 
circumstance also cuts it ofi* from Amaryllidacese, to which it approaches in 
the case of Hypoxis. The habit of Bromehacese is peculiar ; the order con- 
sists of hard dry-leaved plants, often with a scurfy^ surface ; the species are of- 
ten capable of sustaining long drought without inconvenience, and in the case 
of the Barbacenias and VeUozias, have a most remarkable organization of the 
stem. This part, consists of a central slender subcyhndrical column, which 
never increases in diameter after its first formation, and which has the ordi- 
nary monocotyledonous structm-e. Outside of the column are arranged great 
quantities of slender fibrous roots, ' which cohere fiimly by their own cellular 
surface, and form a spurious kind of wood, which is extremely like that of 
some kinds of Palm wood, only it is developed by constant additions to the very 
outside of the original stem. Something analogous occurs in Pandanus. 
Geography. All, without exception, natives of the continent or islands 
of America, whence they have migrated eastwards in such numbers as to have 
established themselves as part of the present Flora of the west coast of Africa, 
and some parts of the East Indies. 
Properties. The most remarkable is the Pine Apple, or Ananas, which 
is well known for the sweetness and fine aromatic flavour of its fi*uit. No 
other species is of the same interest. They are all capable of existing in a 
diy hot air without contact with the earth ; on which account they are 
favourites in South American gardens, where they are suspended in the 
dwellings, or hung to the balustrades of the balconies ; situations in which 
they flower abundantly, filling the air with their fragrance. Ropes are made 
in Brazil from a species of Bromelia, called Grawatha. Pr. Max. Trav. 
GENERA. 
Ananassa, Lindl. 
Bromelia, L. 
Aechmea, R. et P. 
Billbergia, Thunb. 
Pitcairnia, L’Herit. 
Hepetis, Swz. 
Spirastigma, L’Her. 
Xerophyta, Juss. 
Vellozia, Vandelli. 
Campderia, Kth. 
Raddia, Rich. 
Barbacenia, Vandelli. 
Tillandsia, L. 
Strepsia, Nutt. 
Caraguata, PI. 
Devillea, Bert. 
Bonapartea, R. et P. 
Acanthospora, Spr. 
Misandra, Dietr. 
Pourretia, R. et P. 
Guzmannia, R. et P. 
Cottendorfia, Schult. f. 
Dyckia, Schult. f. 
Navia, Schult. f. 
Encholirium, Schult. f. 
Puya, Molin. 
Brocchinia, Schult. f. 
Hohenbergia, Schult. f. 
? Weldenia, Sch. 
