Encholirium inhaiense Leme, 2025

Leme, Elton M. C., Souza, Everton Hilo De, Till, Walter, Barfuss, Michael H. J., Filho, José Alves Siqueira, Kollmann, Ludovic J. C., Couto, Dayvid R., Fraga, Claudio Nicoletti De, Fontana, André P., Farias-Castro, Antônio S., Fernandes, João B. & Silva, Da, 2025, Twenty Miscellaneous New Species and One New Nothogenus and Nothospecies in Brazilian Bromeliaceae, Phytotaxa 692 (1), pp. 1-60 : 28-31

Encholirium inhaiense Leme , sp. nov. ( Fig. 12 A–J )

Diagnosis:––This new species is closely related to Encholirium spectabile , but can be distinguished from it by the longer inflorescence (ca. 125 cm vs. 35–88 cm long), larger floral bracts (to 40 × 13 mm vs. to 22 × 6 mm), and petals smaller (8–10 × 2–2.5 mm vs. 9–22 × 4–10 mm).

Type: –– BRAZIL. Minas Gerais: Diamantina, 7.5 km a sudeste de Inhaí, 794 m elev., 17º59’13” S, 43º36’10” W, 7 August 2010, E . Leme 8436, E . Guarçoni, B . Paixão & R . Oliveira (holotype RB!) .

Description:–– Plant rupiculous, clustering, flowering 2.10 m tall; Leaves ca. 35 in number, densely rosulate, strongly coriaceous, thick mainly toward the base, white-cinereous throughout; sheath much broader than the blades; blade subspreading to strongly recurved, narrowly triangular, attenuate toward the apex, ca. 75 cm long, ca. 5 cm wide at the base (not including the spines), densely white lepidote on both surfaces with trichomes obscuring the color of the blade, finely nerved mainly abaxially, nearly flat, apex long-caudate, margins subdense to laxly and coarsely spinose; spines triangular, 17–25 mm apart, flat, coarsely white lepidote except for the castaneous apex, the basal straight, 10– 12 mm long, 8–10 mm wide at the base, the upper ones distinctly antrorse-uncinate, 4–7 mm long, 4–7 mm wide at the base; peduncle 85 × 1.8–2 cm, terminal, erect, rigid, glabrous, glaucous; peduncle bracts the proximal ones foliaceous to subfoliaceous, distinctly exceeding the internodes, the median ones with a broadly ovate to subtrapeziform, entire base contrasting with a long sublinear-attenuate, spreading to recurved, laxly spinose blade, exceeding to equaling the internodes, stramineous, the distal ones ovate, long acuminate, suberect, spinose near the apex, shorter than the internodes. Inflorescence (fertile part) racemose, simple, ca. 125 cm long, ca. 6 cm in diameter at the base, ca. 3 cm in diameter near the apex, erect, rachis stout, 0.4–1.8 cm in diameter, straight, green, glabrous, strongly sulcate at anthesis; floral bracts spreading to recurved near the apex, the basal ones equaling the flowers, the upper ones shorter than the pedicels, narrowly lanceolate, green near the base, stramineous toward the apex, 9–40 × 3–13 mm, finely nerved, ecarinate, glabrous, finely acuminate, margins entire except for few remote minute spines and the inconspicuously crenulate distal portion. Flowers many, polystichously, subdensely to laxly arranged, exposing the rachis in most part, 22–30 mm long (including the stamens), subverticillate, suberect, distinctly pedicellate, pedicels clavate, 8–11 mm long, 3–5 mm in diameter at the apex; sepals symmetrical, oblong to ovate, apiculate to obtuse, ecarinate, 6–11 × 3–4 mm, green toward the base and nigrescent at the apex, soon stramineous, glabrous, distinctly nerved, irregularly crenulate mainly near the apex, not covering each other; petals symmetrical, narrowly oblong to lingulate, free, obtuse-emarginate, 8–10 × 2–2.5 mm, green except for the nigrescent-purple apex, glabrous, erect at anthesis, not covering each other and distinctly exposing the stamens, crenulate near the apex; stamens distinctly exceeding the petals; filaments terete, subfree, 11–12 × 0.8 mm; anthers sublinear, ca. 5 mm long, base distinctly bilobed, apex obtuse, dorsifixed near the base; ovary ca. 7 mm long; style ca. 8 mm long, slightly shorter than the anthers, green; stigma conduplicate-spiral, subcapitate, yellow, blades ca. 1.5 mm long, margins deeply scalloped. Capsules narrowly ovate, beaked, green, lustrous, 25–26 × 8–9 mm. Seeds orbicular, obtuse, flat, 2–2.5 mm in diameter.

Distribution and habitat:––This new species is known from the type collection only, near the district of Inhaí, county of Diamantina, Minas Gerais state, southeastern Brazil. It forms a large group of plants on more or less horizontal, blackish quartzitic rocky outcrops (fig. 12 A) in the Campos Rupestres domain, about 800 m elevation, under conditions exposed to full sun, associated to large groups of Euphorbia sp. (fig. 12 A).

Etymology:––The chosen specific epithet of this new species is a reference to the place where it was originally collected, in the district of Inhaí, located in the county of Diamantina, Minas Gerais state.

Distinctive characters:—The classical concept of Encholirium Martius ex Schultes & Schultes f. (1830: 1233) adopted here follows Smith & Downs (1974), Smith & Read (1989) and Forzza (2005), not the proposed synonymy of Deuterocohnia Mez (1894: 506) and Encholirium under Dyckia by Gomes-da-Silva et al. (2019).

In the recent revision of the Dyckia selloa (Koch, 1873: 7) Baker (1889: 136) complex, Büneker (2021) also adopted the concept of Dyckia sensu stricto, excluding Encholirium and Deuterocohnia as synonyms. The author highlights the divergence of the results of Gomes-da-Silva et al. (2019) with the results previously obtained by Krapp et al. (2014) and Schütz et al. (2016). Büneker (2021) found that Gomes-da Silva et al. (2019) did not take into consideration the strong evidence for plastid sequestration through ancient hybridization, which should plausibly be verified through individual analyses of the plastid and nuclear marker datasets, as done by Krapp et al. (2014) and Schütz et al. (2016). These analyses could highlight incongruences in phylogenies based on nuclear and plastid data, which consequently would not allow concatenated analyses, and the verification of the possible monophyly of Deuterocohnia from these and from morphological data. Based on the considerations summarized here, Büneker (2021) assumed that there are no strong arguments supporting the proposed inclusion of Deuterocohnia – and also Encholirium – in Dyckia . In the case of Encholirium , he pointed the high evidence of paraphyly, suggesting the need of a more advanced molecular analysis to express the known outstanding morphological differences among them, which were poorly or sometimes imprecisely explored by Gomes-da-Silva et al. (2019).

The generic concept adopted here, following Gouda et al. (cont. updated) and Büneker (2021), is based on the outstanding morphological differences that clearly distinguishes these genera from each other in a simple and practical way. In addition, the classical treatment based on convincing morphological evidence fulfill the backbone of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature expressed in its preamble, that aims at the provision of a stable method of naming taxonomic groups, avoiding and rejecting the use of names that may cause error or ambiguity or throw science into confusion. The nomenclatural confusion is already happening among researchers and can be exemplified by the implicit rejection of the synonymy proposed by Gomes-da-Silva et al. (2019) in recent articles that described new species of Encholirium ( Braun 2021) or proposed news combinations, transferring to Encholirium species originally described as Dyckia (Braun & Tank 2021) . A detailed analysis of the Gomes-da-Silva et al. (2019) proposition and its conflict with the current taxonomical knowledge of Bromeliaceae will be addressed in an upcoming study.

According to the identification key elaborated by Forzza (2005) in the taxonomical revision of Encholirium , this new species is related to E. spectabile (fig. 12 K–M) ‒ considering the broader concept of the species adopted by Forzza (2005) ‒ differing by the longer inflorescence (ca. 125 cm vs. 35–88 cm long), the larger floral bracts (to 40 × 13 mm vs. to 22 × 6 mm), petals smaller (8–10 × 2–2.5 mm vs. 9–22 × 4–10 mm) and narrowly oblong to lingulate (vs. elliptic). On the other hand, E. inhaiense (fig. 12 A–J) is similar to E. subsecundum ( Baker, 1889: 135) Mez (1896: 540) due to inflorescence and flower conformation, but it differs from it by the much longer inflorescence (ca. 125 cm vs. 15–48 cm long), floral bracts shorter than to equaling the flowers (vs. exceeding the flowers), sepals smaller (6–11 × 3–4 mm vs. 12–18 × 5–7 mm, and petals smaller (8–10 × 2–2.5 mm vs. 15–22 × 2–4 mm), green with nigrescent apex (vs. green throughout).

Encholirium inhaiense can be also morphologically associated to E. luxor L.B. Smith & Read (1989: 229) due to the rosette characteristics and inflorescence conformation, but it clearly differs by the leaf blades with longer basal spines (10–12 mm vs. 3–6 mm long), longer inflorescence (ca. 125 cm vs. 45–85 cm long), basal floral bracts equaling the flowers (vs. shorter than the pedicels), larger (9–40 × 3–13 mm vs. 5–16 × 2–4 mm), pedicels shorter (8–11 mm vs. 11–25 mm long), and petals smaller (8–10 × 2–2.5 mm vs. 19–29 × 5–9 mm) and narrowly oblong to lingulate (vs. elliptic).

Despite its distinctly larger size, this new species somewhat resembles Encholirium nibertii P.J. Braun & Gastaldi ( Braun 2021: 85) , another inhabitant of Minas Gerais state, due to its cinereous leaves with pronounced marginal spines. However, E. inhaiense can be distinguished from it by its larger size when in bloom (ca. 2.10 m vs. 0.80–1.30 m high), larger leaf blades (ca. 75 × 5 cm vs. 13–30 × 1–2.5 cm), flowers with shorther pedicels (8–11 mm vs. 12–25 mm long), sepals narrower (3–4 mm vs. 5–6 mm wide), petals narrower (2–2.5 mm vs. 3–5 mm), green with nigrescent apex (vs. green), and longer anthers (ca. 5 mm vs. 2–3 mm long).

Figures

FIGURE 12. A–J. Encholirium inhaiense (Leme et al. 8436): A. Saxicolous habit at the type locality. B. Flowering specimen in cultivation. C. Distal portion of the inflorescence. D. Details of the abaxial (left) and adaxial (right) surfaces of the leaf blades. E. Variation of the shape of the sepals, of the basal flowers (left) and the apical flowers (right). F. Capsules. G. Flowers. H. Petals. I. Stigma. J.Anthers with adaxial view on the left and abaxial view on the right. K–M. Encholirium spectabile in Bahia state. K. Population. L. Basal portion of the inflorescence and flowers. M. Inflorescence. K–M. Photos E.H. de Souza. Bar = 20 mm (D). Bars = 5 mm (E, G–H). Bars = 2 mm (I–J).