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Travels in the interior of Brazil.

by

George Gardner. FLS 1836-41.

p. 527

"Besides specimens of nearly all the plants which I found on my previous journey (in the Organ mtns) I collected on the ascent many that were new to me two of the most remarkable of these were a kind of Fuchsia (F. alpestris, Gardn.) and a very extraordinary species of Utricularia; the latter to which I have given the name of U. nelumbifolia has since been published in Hooker's Icones Plantarum where a very excellent figure of it is given; like most of its congeners it is aquatic but what is most curious is that it is only to be found growing in the water which collects in the bottom of the leaves of a large Tillandsia⁺ that inhabits abundantly an arid rocky part of the mountain at an elevation of about 5,000 feet above the level of the sea. Besides the ordinary method by seed,  it propagates itself by runners, which it throws out from the base of the flower stem

⁺ a Bromeliaceous plant The water collects in the deep crevices of leaves } JDH

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this runner is always found directing itself towards the nearest Tillandsia, when it inserts its point into the water and gives origin to a new plant which in its turn sends out another shoot in this manner I have seen not less than six plants united. The leaves which are peltate measure upwards of three inches across and the flowering stem which is upwards of two feet long bears numerous large purple flowers."   

Gardner, George. 1846. Travels in the interior of Brazil: principally through the northern provinces, and the gold and diamond districts, during the years 1836-1841. London: Reeve.