"This all started in Australia in 1984 when plants were coming from the USA as Neoregelia punctatissima based on the photograph in the Journal of the Bromeliad Society #6 p. 197 (1974). This had been taken by W. W. G. Moir of Hawaii. As Bill Morris pointed out in the Australian Journal - Bromeletter #2 p.8 (1984) there appeared to be no similarity between this plant and the formal description in Lyman Smith's Monograph. This misidentification remains to this day as is evidenced by photographs in our Photo Index.To help you decide what we should be looking for the formal description follows:-
35. Neoregelia punctatissima (Ruschi) Ruschi, Bol. mus. Biol., Bot. 15:2. 1954
Nidularium punctatissimum Ruschi, Bull. Mus. Nation. Hist. Nat. II.26: 547, fig. 1954
Stemless, flowering 20 cm high. Leaves 8 - 14 in a dense rosette that is conic-cylindric below and spreading above, 12 20 cm long, green with white sericeous transverse spots, subdensely brown-punctulate beneath, chartaceous; sheaths broadly elliptic, as long as the blades, 4 - 5 cm wide; blades oblong, rounded and apiculate. Scape slender, 4-5 cm long. Inflorescence simple, 3 -12-flowered. Floral bracts lanceolate, acute, 7 mm long, membranaceous, hyaline; flowers slenderly pedicellate; sepals lanceolate, acute, 17 mm long, connate for 3 mm, chartaceous, white, glabrous; petals 42 mm long, tube 9mm long, blade recurved-spreading, ovate, acuminate, undulate-margined; stamens much shorter than the petals; ovary ellipsoid, white; placentae central.
Type. Ruschi s.n. (holotype, Mus. Bol. Prof. Mello-Leitao no. I-394, isotype, Bromelario Foster, epiphytic in woods near Santa Teresa, Espirito Santo, Brazil, 700 -800 m alt.
Distribution. Known with certainty from the type collection alone, doubtfully in cultivation
In the drawings that follow :- A = outer leaf; B = inner leaf, C = bract, D = flower, E = sepal
All the 'punctatissima' that I have dissected have been very close to N. ampullacea.
Traits I would be looking for are :-
1. A conic-cylindric rosette (not tubular)
2. Leaves as per drawing.
3. Leaves with white markings.
4. White sepals (not common in Neoregelia)
5. Long petals (as long as those at the bottom end of the range in the sub-genus Longipetalopsis)
Perhaps this could be a challenge for the Brazilian growers to find out if this plant is still alive somewhere in Santa Teresa.
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