| Plant - | stoloniferous, to 20cm high, few leaved, forming an almost tubular rosette. |
| Stolons - | woody, 5-6cm long, 4mm diam, imbricately covered with scale-like leaves which are broad oval, acute, brown lepidote. |
| Sheath - | forming an erect tube, 5-6cm long, 2.5 - 3cm wide, outside brownish-red olive and brown appressed scales, inside purple. |
| Blade - | ligulate, 10-13cm long, 2-2.6cm wide, sub-erect, a little contracted above the sheath, sub-canaliculate, the tip rounded and apiculate, dark green, outside grey appressed lepidote and inconspicuous crossbands, inside small appressed lepidote, the edges with remote and small teeth. |
| Scape - | up to 6cm long, thick, 7mm diam, white, scattered brownish-grey lepidote, internodes to 8mm long. |
| Scape bracts - | sub-imbricate, wide-oval, blunt apiculate to tailed, whitish, scattered brown lepidote, weakly nerved. |
| Inflorescence - | simple, densely capitate, inserted in the leaf-rosette, 35mm long, 18mm diam, more or less 16 flowered. |
| Floral bracts - | ligulate, inflated, sub-membranaceous, 23mm long, 8mm wide, red spotted, greenish white towards the tip, rounded and with very small green tip, weakly nerved, scattered brown lepidote. |
| Pedicel - | 5mm long, 3mm diam, white, smooth. |
| Sepals - | asymmetric, broad-lanceolate, acute, chartaceous, joined for 1mm, hyaline edges, 16mm long, 8mm wide, reddish. |
| Petals - | almost free, 25mm long, 4mm wide, blade spreading out, broad-oval, acute, lying flat, white, with 2 pale green longitudinal calluses in the middle. |
| Stamens - | 10mm long, joined to petal for 7mm, white, complanate. |
| Anthers - | sub-basifixed, acute, three angled, whitish connective tissue joining the anther, yellowish. |
| Pistil - | 15mm long, white, stigmata contorted and fimbriate. |
| Ovary - | sub-cylindric, 10mm long, 4mm diam, white with scattered white hairs. |
| Habitat - | Brazil, without location, leg A. Bleher 1974, flowered in cultivation by Weber July 1978 |
Differs from N. tigrina in;
1. Leaf blade has inconspicuous transverse streaks.
2. Petal has green streaks in the middle
Now you know what the plant looks like let me introduce you to the problem. In 1982 I purchased a Neoregelia sp.749 at the Orange County Show in Los Angeles and have been trying ever since to find out what it is. Whose number was it? Was it a species?
I now have all the formal descriptions of Neoregelia thanks to Harry Luther and his staff at Marie Selby Gardens and these have been closely checked. The closest I can get is N. amandae where it differs on just a few points. How significant are they?
| No.749 | amandae | |
| Stolon | 1-2cm long | 5-6cm long |
| Leaf blade | purple blotched | ? |
| Pedicel | 1cm long | 5mm long |
| Sepal | free, green | joined 1mm, reddish |
| Petal | no green lines | 2 green lines |
I assume that the green markings on the petal are similar to what I found on N. laevis. This fact is not mentioned in Smith and Downs p1570 although it is in Reitz's "Bromeliaceas" 1983 so it may not be as rare as Weber intimated in his article in the BSI Journal. The purple blotching could well be a reaction to the strength of sunlight we get in Australia compared to Germany. The length of stolon also seems to vary according to the amount of shade given.
As far as I am aware N. amandae did not survive in Germany so we cannot get a photograph for comparison purposes and will have to rely on the line drawing by Weber.
At the moment I am treating No. 749 as N. amandae
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