Matthias Asmuss pitcairnia (Pitcairnia asmussii) from Venezuela similar to Pitcairnia xanthocalyx Mart. 1848

NEWS - Matthias Asmuss pitcairnia (Pitcairnia asmussii Gouda spec. nov.) discovered by Matthias Asmuss from Caracas, Venezuela, and cultivated at the Utrecht Botanical Gardens is similar to Pitcairnia xanthocalyx Martius (1848), but with shorter flower stalks with larger sepals and petals, and dimorphic, non-petiolate leaves.

Pitcairnia L’Heritier (1788) is a mostly terrestrial genus widespread from Mexico to Argentina with a total of 217 species and about 52 species known from Venezuela. In 2015 Matthias Asmuss from Caracas collected a new Pitcairnia from Aragua, Venezuela.

The specimen is kept in the VEN herbarium, but due to the chaotic period in the country, it may have been lost, only the photo remains. At Utrecht Botanic Gardens, Eric Gouda obtained a young specimen from the collection in November 2018 and it flowered in May (2024). This living specimen is next to the type specimen used for the description.

Pitcairnia asmussii is an acaulescent or short caulescent plant, flowering 70–140(–170) cm tall, growing terrestrial, with 15–40 rosulate leaves, forming an open rosette, pale green. Leaves spirally arranged, slightly turning downward secund, dimorphic, narrowed at the base but not (sub-)petiolate, persistent, thin coriaceous, much shorter than the inflorescence.

Sheath ample, fleshy coriaceous, broadly triangular-ovate, tightly clasping the stem and other sheaths, 2–6 cm long, 2–6 cm wide, upper half densely spinose serrulate of dark brown or blackish spines and the inner ones throughout, in lower half membranaceous at the margins, glabrous, cream colored to castaneous brown abaxially.

Blade divergent and arching to recurving, soft, thin coriaceous, with a slightly shallow channeled midsection (drying paler), linear-lanceolate, 30–40(–70) cm long, (1.8–)2–3.5 cm wide, the outer distinctly narrower than the inner ones (and lower peduncle bracts), bright green often with paler margins, entire except sometimes at the base, attenuate, narrowly caudate or attenuate and filiform-attenuate, glabrescent adaxially except toward the apex, abaxially covered with a white membrane of fused scales, with closely applied trichomes (coming off easily); reduced-leaves (the first leaves of a shoot) narrow triangular, serrate of large black retroverse spines, pungent, brown-green.

Inflorescence simple, racemose, lax, with 20–50 flowers, floccose, green; fertile part 25–65 cm long; peduncle slender, elongate, bracteate but mostly exposed, erect, 90–140 cm long, 8–10 mm in diameter, white floccose lepidote, green, distal internodes decreasing in length.

Peduncle bracts the lower ones foliaceous, rapidly reducing in length but broad, the lower ones with recurving blade, distal ones erect, remote, chartaceous, narrowly triangular or lanceolate, entire, filiform attenuate or the upper more acute, exceeding or slightly shorter than the internodes, but narrow and exposing much of the peduncle, green; axis elongate, wholly exposed, stout, straight, terete, internodes irregularly 0.1–2 cm long, white floccose lepidote, green.

Floral bracts small, like the upper peduncle-bracts, divergent with and the base clasping the pedicel, remote, chartaceous, finely veined, ecarinate, triangular-lanceolate to ovate, entire, attenuate or narrowly acuminate, 2–3 cm long, 0.5–0.6 cm wide, exceeding the pedicel and about as long as the ovary, adaxially sparsely lepidote especially toward the apex, abaxially subdensely lepidote at the margins and subdensely glandular hairy elsewhere, green.

Flowers divergent, excluding pedicel ca 9 cm long, corolla slightly zygomorphic, with the petals turned to one side, imbricate and hooded over the stamens, curved to horizontal, pedicellate; pedicel divergent, subslender, 8–9 mm long, 1.6–2.3 mm in diameter.

Sepals fleshy at the base, even or slightly veined toward the apex when dry, narrowly triangular-ovate, symmetric or slightly asymmetric, with thin margins, abruptly triangular acute, slightly hooked at the lepidote apex, (2–)2.5–2.8 cm long , to 6.5–8.5 mm wide, abaxial ones bluntly carinate (obscurely toward the apex), free, only abaxially sparsely lepidote toward the base, pale yellow to greenish at base.

Petals narrowly oblong-ligulate or lanceolate, margins hyaline, bearing one ligule at the base, thin with fleshy base, the apex of the blade spreading to recurving, short cuneate at the base, with 4 mm wide claw, obtuse or rounded and slightly emarginate at the apex, 7–8.4 cm long, 1–1.4 cm wide, soft fimbriate at the apex, pale salmon yellow or pale yellow, with hyaline margins; ligule ca 3 mm long (4 mm wide), truncate or bi-lobed, dentate, at the base half adnate to the petal.

Stamens ca 7 cm long, included but exposed below the one sided petal-blades, all equal in length, shorter than the petals; filament slender, sub-terete to slightly complanate toward the base, straight (not plicate), shortly adnate to the ovary, salmon yellowish to paler at the base; anther basifixed, linear, 12–13 mm long, yellow, with two narrow lobes contiguous with the filament at the base, obtuse at the apex; orange-yellow pollen.

Pistil exerted with the stigma; ovary ca half-inferior, inferior part 5–7 x 7.5 mm, obconic, green, lepidote, with laminar-nectary tissue in the center, superior part 8–8.5 cm long, attenuate from base upward, merging into the style, green; ovule many; style slender, elongate, many times longer than the ovary, deep salmon-yellow (paler toward base); stigma conduplicate-spiralized, club-shaped, densely papillose, deep yellow.

New species similar to P. xanthocalyx, but dimorphic leaves on new shoots starting with short, narrow, triangular, coarsely and sharply serrated leaves (vs. leaves all the same), leaves not (sub-)petiolate (vs. subpetiolate), sheaths serrated at the top and glabrous (vs. entire and covered with scale membranes), flower stalks entire except for the base sometimes (vs. loosely serrated), flower stalks 0.8–0.9 (vs. 1.5–2 cm) , sepals [2–]2.5–2.8 (vs. 1.5–2 cm) and petals 7–8.4 (vs. 4.5–5 cm).

P. asmussii grows on slopes of deciduous forests , often under bushes and small trees, mostly on rocks or on apparently infertile soils in Costa de Oro province, Aragua state, Venezuela, at an elevation of 100 m.

Original research

Eric J. Gouda (2024). Pitcairnia asmussii (Bromeliaceae), a new species form Venezuela, close to P. xanthocalyx Mart. Phytotaxa 671 (2): 139–143, DOI:10.11646/phytotaxa.671.2.3

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