MainDescriptionReferences

Aechmea incompta Leme & H.Luther  diagnose
plant probably epiphytic, flowering ca 50 cm high. leaves coriaceous, forming a funnelform rosette; sheath elliptic, 7–10 x 6 cm, densely pale-lepidote, slightly wine-colored adaxially; blade sublinear, slightly if narrowed at base, canaliculate, 25–35 x 3–3.5 cm, densely serrulate, spines brown 0.5–1.5 mm long, densely but inconspicuously white-lepidote adaxially, very densely white-lepidote or sometimes white crossbanded abaxially, apex soon drying, inner leaves with subacute to rounded long-cuspidate abruptly recurved apex, the outer older leaves with acuminate apex. inflorescence: peduncle suberect, ca 35 cm long, ca 0.5 cm in diameter, white-lanate becoming glabrous, green; peduncle bracts narrowly linear-lanceolate, apex acuminate, stramineous, finely nervate, white-lepidote, spinulose, erect, equaling or slightly exceeding the internodes; fertile part laxly paniculate, once-branched, ca 13 cm long; primary bracts resembling the upper peduncle bracts but smaller, distinctly shorter than the branches, spreading, the basal 2.5–3 cm long, ca 0.5 cm wide, inconspicuously spinulose at base to entire; branches ca 3 in number, cylindric, laxly arranged, 4–5 cm long, 2–3 cm in diameter, peduncle ca 8 mm long, spreading to slightly reflexed, densely flowered, the terminal ca 9 cm long, rachis straight, pale-lepidote, green, 2.5–3 mm in diameter; floral bracts narrowly triangular, acuminate-caudate, 6–13 mm long, 3–4 mm wide at base, entire, equaling to slightly exceeding the ovary, stramineous, finely nervate. flowers ca 16 mm long, sessile, densely and polystichously arranged; sepals strongly asymmetrical, ca 6 x 4 mm, connate at base for ca 1 mm, distinctly mucronate, mucro ca 1.5 mm long, sparsely white-lepidote, green with exception of the stramineous apex; petals narrowly subspathulate, apex acuminate, ca 13 x 2.5 mm, subspreading to slightly reflexed at anthesis, free, naked, white. stamens: filament the epipetalous highly adnate to the petals, the antesepalous free; anther ca 3 mm long, base obtuse, apex apiculate, fixed near the middle. pistil: stigma conduplicate spiral, cylindrical, lobes inconspicuously crenulate; ovary terete, ca 4 mm long, ca 3 mm in diameter, sparsely white-lepidote, green; placentation apical; ovules few, obtuse; epigynous tube inconspicuous.

Edited from : Leme & Luther 1999. (protologue) Miscellaneous new species of Brazilian Bromeliaceae (II) .