Kurt Peters has added another species to the small and little known genus Ronnbergia and also to the seemingly inexhaustible flora of Panama. Since many bromeliad lovers,have not even heard of Ronnbergia, a little explanation is in order. Without careful examination of the flower, a Ronnbergia would be mistaken for an Aechmea with a simple subdense to lax inflorescence. The basic difference is that Ronnbergia lacks the petal appendages that Aechmea has, or the same difference as between Tillandsia and Vriesea.
Another comparison that comes to mind is that while the first Aechmea was collected about 1787 and published in 1803, the first Ronnbergia was collected some 80 years later and published in 1874. Since then Aechmea has grown to a genus of over 160 species while the present addition only brings Ronnbergia to a count of 8. Linden and Andre started the genus with Ronnbergia morreniana, the most ornamental of a11 the species with its large petiolate dark spotted leaves. Eduard Morren in 1885 just before his death, described a second species, Ronnbergia maidifolia and Mez in his 1896 monograph published R. columbiana. In his 1935 monograph he still had only 3 species, but then the great wave in Latin American collections began to take effect.
Killip from the Smithsonian made extensive general collections in Colombia with a number of new Bromeliaceae including Ronnbergia. killipiana described in 1955. In 1963, Nat DeLeon from our Bromeliad Society brought back Ronnbergia deleonii from Colombia. By a curious coincidence it is the nearest relative to our second new species from the Society, Ronnbergia petersii. In 1966, Hatheway discovered Ronnbergia hathewayi in Costa Rica, thereby extending the generic range considerably northward. Dudley in exploring in the western drainage of Peru in 1969 discovered the strangest of all, Ronnbergia explodens and added a new character to the family. According to his notes, the fruit "upon the slightest touch ..... explodes releasing large quantities of mucilaginous seeds." This brings our count to 7 and introduces our latest addition to the genus:
