Spreading Airplant

Tillandsia utriculata L. Sp. PI. 286. 1753
TinmidsialingidataBaTtr.TTav.6. 1791. Not T. lingidala J.. 1753.
Tillandsia polyslachya Muhl. Cut. 3i,hyponym. 1813. Not T. polystachya h. 1762.
Tillandsia Bartrami Nutt. Am. Jour. Sci. 5: 292. 1822.
Tillandsia flexuosa y pallida Lindl. Bot. Reg. 9: pi. 749. 1823.
Tj/iaHrfsia rumoia Sweet, Hort. Brit. 425. 1826.
Tillandsia Nuttalliana Schultes, in R. & S. Syst. Veg. 7: 1220. 1830.
Anoplophylum fiexuosum var. pallidum Beer, Bromel. 43. 1857.
Vriesea ratnosa Beer, Bromel. 265. 1857.
Platystachvs utriculata Beer, Bromel. 266. 1857.
Vriesea utriculata Regel, Ind. Sem. Hort. Petrop. 1869: 34. 1870.
Platyslachys Ehrenbergii K. Koch. Ind. Sem. Hort. Berol. 1873: App. 4: 5. 1874.
Allardtia Potockii Ant. Oesterr. Bot. Zeits. 28: 56. 1878.
Tillandsia brevibracteala Baker, Jour. Bot. 25: 346. 1887.
Tillandsia Sinlenisii Baker, Jour. Bot. 26: 12. 1888.
Plant stemless, 0.5-2 m. high; leaves many in a dense utriculate rosette, 4-10 dm. long, densely and finely pale-appressed-lepidote throughout; sheaths subovate, large; blades lineartriangular, long-acuminate, 2-7 cm. wide at the base, the outer ones usually recurving; scape erect, equaling or often exceeding the leaves, stout or slender, glabrous; scape-bracts erect, tubular-involute, barely imbricate or the uppermost sometimes remote, ovate, the lower ones linear-laminate, the upper acute; inflorescence central, amply bior tripinnate or rarely simple, lax, glabrous; primary bracts like the upper scape-bracts, not more than 4 cm. long, much shorter than the sterile base of the axillary branch, often darkviolet ; branches curvedascending; spiciform racemes up to 35 cm. long with an elongate sterile base bearing several bracts, laxly flowered; rhachis slender, undulate, sulcate, strongly flattened next the flowers; floral bracts erect, enfolding the base of the flower but very little of the rhachis, ovate, obtuse or acutish, much exceeded by the sepals, equaling or shorter than the internodes, closely and prominently nerved throughout, subcoriaceous and green with a broad, membranaceous, often dark-purple margin, ecarinate; flowers erect, appressed to the rhachis; pedicels stout, up to 5 mm. long; sepals narrowly elliptic or obovate, obtuse, 14—18 mm. long, subcoriaceous with a membranaceous margin, prominently nerved; petals tubular-erect, linear, acute, 3-4 cm. long, white; stamens and pistil exserted; capsule slenderly cylindric, acute, 4 cm. long; seed with a long apical appendage.
Type ItOCaliTy: "Habitat in Americae meridionalis arboribus."
Distribution: Georgia (Bartram) and Florida; West Indies; Tamaulipas and British Honduras; also in Venezuela.