There are a few Aechmea species with a long black terminal spine over 1 cm long on the floral bracts. The most commonly collected and well-known species is Aechmea setigera Mart. ex Schult. & Schult.f. (1830) a plant that usually has a horizontal inflorescence. Two others are Ae. longicuspis Baker (1889) and Ae. kuntzeana Mez (1896) that normally, but not always, have upright inflorescences.

There is much confusion concerning the identification of species within this group. For example, in Baensch (1994) on page 51 we see an Ae. setigera-like plant with an upright inflorescence identified as Ae. longicuspis, but the open long cylindric inflorescence with the dendriform elongated sterile endings is typical of Ae. setigera that apparently can also have a nearly upright inflorescence.

In 2010 we flowered a similar plant at the University Utrecht Botanic Gardens with an upright inflorescence, that originated from Bolivia (Evrard C. s.n.) and using the identification key in Smith & Downs (1979) it keyed out to Ae. longicuspis but was also found within the range of Ae. kuntzeana, that was described from Bolivia. Ae. longicuspis is known from Colombia and Peru, not mentioned to occur elsewhere. At the time, because the original descriptions were lacking many critical details, I did not consider it further.

In December 2012 we traveled with Ricardo Fernandez (USM) from Tarapoto to Yurimaguas, Peru (see Gouda & Gouda 2018) and found another plant that varies a lot in size from ca 50 cm up to 1 m tall and was found at several locations along this road. We collected a specimen with ripe fruits (RF 3643 at U, USM) for which it was also difficult to decide which of the two species it belonged to.

The seeds were sown by Peter Bak and it flowered at his nursery some years ago when we visited Bak's nursery with members of the the German Bromeliad Society and the Dutch-Belgian Bromeliad Contact Group. It was a huge plant, flowering far over 1 m tall and difficult to get good pictures of in its setting.

Last year we got a smaller specimen back from Peter Bak that flowered early this summer and gave me the opportunity to compare this plant to the one from Bolivia. I decided that the specimen from Bolivia was closer to the type of Ae. kuntzeana and the specimen from Peru was closer to the type of Ae. longicuspis. Amended descriptions were made for both species. The specimen from Bolivia has a broadly rounded leaf apex that is acuminate into a sharp point, like that in the type specimen of this species and the inflorescence seems to be denser than in Ae. longicuspis, but differs from the original description in that the indumentum of the inflorescence is cinereous instead of ferruginous and it has branches with up to 5 flowers. The original description specified 2-flowered branches, and this is what is seen in the holotype specimen at NY, but the isotype specimen at B clearly shows up to 5-flowered branches...