Billbergia robert-readii has a remarkable flower color, a dusky green-brown; the stigmas are very long, especially postfloral, and wide spreading. Because the petals are rolled back at anthesis (only 1.5 cm long) it belongs to the subgenus Helicodea. According to the key of L.B. Smith and R.J. Downsz it is related to B. cardenasii L.B. Smith from Bolivia, which has clear yellow petals with large flabelliform basal appendages (those of the present species are obscure and with only one or two lobes), the ovary is ellipsoid and trigonous (the present species has a more cylindrical ovary) the epigynous tube is shorter than the ovary proper (as in the present species), but the petals lack the glandular hairs. B. alfonsi-joannis Reitz, of Santa Catarina, Serra do Mirador, Brazil, differs from the present species by having sheaths 20 cm long; scape bracts rose-red, not dried up at anthesis; sepals deeply emarginate (retuse), yellow-green with a sharp violet apiculus; petals 10 cm long. Neither of the latter two species has flowers which curve upward from the essentially horizontally spreading ovary position at anthesis, nor are the sepals quite like the present new species.
Notes
The genus Billbergia is represented in the western countries of South America including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia according to L.B. Smith and R.J. Downs with only about eight species. In recent years more have been discovered in Ecuador and Peru, but many are not yet described. In 1971, however, Dr. Rauh collected two different billbergias in southeastern Peru in a degraded rainforest. One of them came into flower in September 1986.
This plant is characterized by hanging inflorescences, with upward-curved flowers at anthesis, and the strange, dusky green-brown color of the petals which are covered with minute glandular hairs. Since we were of the opinion that our billbergia is a new species, we sent the material to Robert W. Read of the Smithsonian Institution because he is more specialized in Billbergia than we are. Dr. Read verified our statement and so we will dedicate our plant to him not only for his merits in studying these representatives of the subfamily of the Bromelioideae, but also as a belated wedding gift from the Heidelberg Garden. —SeeJ. Bromeliad Soc.
