Aechmea veitchii Baker

Aechmea veitchii Baker, Bot. Mag. pi. 6329. 1877
ChevaUiera Veikhii E. Morren. Belg. Hortic. 28: 177. 1878.
Stoloniferous, about 1 m. high; leaves 12-17 in a loosely cjathiform rosette, coriaceous, almost straight, 3-10 dm. long; sheaths short and indistinct; blades ligulate, abruptly acute, apiculate, pungent, 4-6 cm. wide, glabrous and pale-green above with spots of dark-green, beneath densely and finely appressed-cinereous-lepidote, armed with spinuliform teeth I mm. long and 1-2 mm. apart, broadly channeled down the middle; scape erect, stout; scape-bracts erect, densely imbricate, foliaceous, acute or acuminate, spinulose-serrate ; inflorescence simple with flowers many-ranked, densely spicate, cylindric or slenderly conic, 1-4 dm. long, 30-55 mm. in diameter; floral bracts equaling or longer than the flowers but with the upper half sharply reflexed, lance-ovate, acuminate, pungent, 12-15 mm. long, densely spinose-serrate, bright-red, glabrous above, sparsely white-furfuraceous beneath; flowers sessile, suberect, 2 cm. long; sepals asymmetric, acute, pungent, 13 mm. long, white with the extreme apex rose, free; petals fugacious, ligulate, obtuse, barely exserted, bearing 2 oblique denticulate scales near base; stamens included, the second series short-connate with the petals; ovary stoutly obconic, glabrous, white; oiiles pendent from the top of the cell, caudate.
Type ujc.^utv: Colombia. Distribution: Costa Rica; also in Colombia.