Pitcairnia atrorubens (Beer) Baker
Literature references:
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Comments:
- var. atrorubens
Sheaths brown lepidote. Floral bracts shiny red to dark-red, only bent over at the tip, underneath scattered lepidote. Petals broad -ligulate, blunt, but shortly tipped, pale yellow.
var. pallido-bracteata Gross and Rauh
Sheaths glabrous. Floral Bracts pale greenish, only at the edges scattered wool. Petals shiny yellow, narrow-ligulate, long acuminate, the upper half strongly bent over
P. atrorubens in L. B. SMITH and DOWNS,( Flora Neotropica, Pitcairnioideae, p. 392,) states that the floral bracts should be “rarely yellowish ", but it does not determine to which synonym this applies.
Our studies ahow that the synonyms of P. atrorubens as shown by Smith & Downs, including P. lamarcheana E. Morren ex Baker, all have red floral bracts. L. B. SMITH in his “Flora of Panama”, Bromeliaceae, 1944, p.75, writes:”Pitcairnia lamarcheana has been separated as a species and then as a variety [P. atrorubens var. lamarcheana (E. Morren. ex Baker) Mez in DC. Monogr. Phan. 9, p. 457, 1896] by its pale yellowish floral bracts, but it is known only from cultivation and it is not possible to say whether this difference is really significant: `
J. G. Baker, Handbook of the Bromeliaceae, 1889, p.111,where the original-diagnosis of P. lamarcheana E. MORREN is located, states that “floral bracts” are “bright red”. In addition the location of Chiriqui (Panama) is given with the comment “described from Professor Morren’s drawing, made in August 1881: A check in the Kew Herbarium for the original description by E Morren by David Philcox,Trustee of the Kew Herbarium, for which we thank, yielded that the floral bracts were red not pale yellow. A variety of P.atrorubens with pale yellow floral bracts has not, up to now, been described.
The Type (var. atrorubens), Warszcewicz s.n comes from Chiriqui-Volcano, North-Panama, and var. pallido-bracteata was collected by us as a terrestrial on the Cerro Jefe (central-Panama) near 800 m high.
The var. pallido-bracteata is similar to P. imbricata (Brogn.) Regel; but this has erect, not bent over floral brcacts as well as white petals and a superior ovary. p. Trop Subtrop Pflanz
