Racinaea tetrantha var. caribaea (L. B. Sm.) M. A. Spencer & L. B. Sm.

Tillandsia caribaea L. B. Smith, Proc. Am. Acad. 70: 155. 1935
Tillandsia parvifiora "R. & P." Griseb. Nachr. Ges. Wiss. Gott. 1864: 16. 1865. Not T. pan-iflora
R. & P. 1802. Calopsis Fendleri Baker, Jour. Bot. 25: 175. 1887.
Tillandsia Fendleri Mez, in DC. Monog. Phan. 9: 741. 1896. Not T. Fendleri Griseb. 1865. Tillandsia paucifiora (error for parviflora) Griseb.; Mez, in DC. Monog. Phan. 9: 741, as synonym.
1896. Tillandsia ferruginascens Mez, in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4^^: 500. 1935.
Stemless, the flowering plant 5 dm. high; leaves 10-12 in a dense rosette, 15-20 cm. long, densely pimctulate throughout with minute appressed scales; sheaths ovate, dark-brown, brown-lepidote ; blades narrowly triangular, not over 20 mm. wide at the base, gray-green, palelepidote; scape erect or curved, spreading-ferrugineous-lepidote, becoming glabrous; scapebracts oblong-elliptic, caudate, densely pale-lepidote, about equaling the internodes; inflorescence bipinnate, erect or pendulous, lax, 20-30 cm. long, 6-10 cm. in diameter, much exceeding the leaves; axis distinctly geniculate, angled, tomentosely ferruginous-lepidote, becoming glabrous; primary bracts lanceolate-acute, densely pale-lepidote, about half as long as the spikes; spikes spreading or reflexed, very laxly 31 2-flowered, distinctly stipitate; rhachis slightly flexuous, densely ferruginous-lepidote; floral bracts shorter than the sepals, broadly ovate, apiculate, bluntly keeled, striate, densely ferruginous-lepidote; flowers spreading, sessile, 6-9 mm. long, the apical ones often poorly developed; sepals subfree, asymmetric, slightly longer than the petals, densely lepidote; petals much exceeding the stamens, the blade minute; anthers lanceolate, acute, 1.5 mm. long; ovary globose, abruptly contracted into the thick style; stigma even with the middle of the anthers; capsule cylindric, abruptly short-beaked, 25 nun. long; seeds many, 2.5 mm. long, the coma white, 15 mm. long.
Type locality: Colonia Tovir, Aragua, Venezuela, altitude 2300 meters. Distribution: Cuba and Haiti; also in Venezuela.