Cryptanthus Otto & Dietrich (1836: 298)

Leme, Elton M. C., Ribeiro, Otávio B. C., Souza, Fernanda Vidigal D., Souza, Everton Hilo De, Kollmann, Ludovic J. C. & Fontana, André P., 2020, Miscellaneous new species in the “ Cryptanthoid complex ” (Bromeliaceae: Bromelioideae) from Eastern Brazil, Phytotaxa 430 (3), pp. 157-202 : 158

1. Cryptanthus Otto & Dietrich (1836: 298)

According to the genus concept adopted by Leme et al. (2017), Cryptanthus is characterized by andromonoecious plants with compound or rarely pseudosimple, sessile, and shortly corymbose inflorescences (fertile part) with inconspicuously stipitate basal/outer flower fascicles. The unappendaged, usually white, rarely green or greenish petals are sublinear-lanceolate to narrowly spathulate, arcuate to recurved at anthesis and distinctly exposing the stamens, basally connate for 1/7–1/3 of their length, and 4–8 times longer than wide. Filaments are equal in length and the sulcate pollen is spherical, its exine is reticulate, the reticulum coarse proximally with thick muri and broad lumina, and the sulcus completely covered with exine elements forming a net. The stigma has conduplicate-patent lobes. Fruits present the distal portion of the attached sepals soon decaying, and the persistent basal remnants are 2–4 times shorter than the fruit length. Seeds are comparatively large and few in number, usually 2–10, rarely to 30 per fruit.

The genus is associated to low-altitude habitats within the hygrophilous to drier Atlantic Forest, Restinga vegetation of the coastal plains, as well as it inhabits of inland areas of riparian forests and the drier environment of Caatinga vegetation. It ranges from the southeastern states, i.e., Rio de Janeiro (the southernmost limit), Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, to the northeastern states of Bahia, Sergipe, Alagoas, Pernambuco, Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte (the northernmost limit). Cryptanthus currently comprises 59 species, including the four new species described below.