Ochagavia Genus

Ochagavia is a small genus of four species of bromeliad in the family Bromeliaceae (subfamily Bromelioideae), order Poales, endemic to central and southern Chile. The genus was first described in 1856 by the German-Chilean botanist Rodolfo Amando Philippi and named in honor of Silvestre Ochagavía, Chile's Minister of Education at the time.

Plants in this genus are caulescent (stem-forming), rosette-forming terrestrial or saxicolous herbs with succulent, spinose-serrulate leaves. Unlike many other bromeliads, Ochagavia species do not form water-holding leaf tanks. Their inflorescences are simple, terminal, and globose to capitate, bearing bisexual, actinomorphic, sessile flowers with three free rose-colored petals. Fruits are indehiscent berries containing numerous flattened, dark brown to black seeds.

The four accepted species—Ochagavia andina, Ochagavia carnea, Ochagavia elegans, and Ochagavia litoralis—occupy a range of habitats from coastal cliffs to montane forests in the Chilean Mediterranean climate zone. One species, Ochagavia elegans, is endemic to Robinson Crusoe Island in the Juan Fernández archipelago. Some populations, particularly of O. carnea, have naturalized in mild oceanic climates in western Europe, notably on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly, England.

Ochagavia is closely related to the monotypic genus Fascicularia but is distinguished by floral morphology (acute or acuminate sepals without keels versus keeled sepals in Fascicularia), its terrestrial or saxicolous habit (versus epiphytic), and a more northerly distribution that does not extend into the Valdivian temperate rainforests where Fascicularia occurs.