Aechmea smithiorum Mez

Aechmea smithiorum Mez, in DC. Monog. Phan. 9: 246. 1896
Plant 55 cm. high; leaves 7 dm. long; sheaths distinct, elliptic, obscurely brown-punctulate; blades ligulate, rounded-mucronate, 4-5 cm. wide, pale-green, minutely punctulate-lepidote, densely armed with dark-brown, antrorsely uncinate spines up to 3 mm. long; scape erect (?), slender, sparsely tomentulosc; scape-bracts erect, lanceolate, acuminate, entire; inflorescence compound with simple branches, densely ellipsoid, obtuse, 12 cm. long, 5 cm. in diameter, cinereous-pubescent; lower primary bracts like the scape-bracts, exceeding the axillary branches; spikes sessile or subsessile, erect, dense, polyslichous on the main axis, distichously 6-13-flowered, fertile throughout, ovate or oblong, acute, 4-5 cm. long, 3 cm. wide, strongly complanate; floral bracts cymbiform, 1 1 mm. long without the 5 mm. long mucro, distinctly exceeded by the sepals, forming a pouch with the broadly winged rhachis, entire, prominently nerved; flowers sessile, suberect, 2 cm. long; sepals asymmetric, 1 cm. long without the 3 nun. long terminal mucro, cinereous-tomentulose, connate for I mm.; petals bearing 2 slightly incised scales at base; ovary 5 mm. long, enlarged in fruit, the epigynous tube .short; ovules borne at the top of the cell, caudate.
TvPB WjCalitv: St. Vincent, altitude 300-500 meters. niSTBiBUTTON: Known only from the type locality.