Replies on: Casus Pro Diagnosi - Bromeliad Identification Page

15. Tillandsia cf. fasciculata (Send your reply, using the form)

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• Walter Till (19 Mar.99):  The plant is wonderful. Did you check T. beutelspacheri? It is erroneously
  included in Smith and Downs (1977) in subgen. Allardtia albeit it is
  clearly subgen. Tillandsia.
• Eric Gouda (19 Mar.99): Yes, it does resembles T. beutelspacheri too, but the spikes does not have the narrow cuneate bases and are not pendent! Baensch, Blooming Bromeliads: has a nice picture at page 213, with short scape and dark pink petals! Harry Luther is showing a specimen in the Jour.Brom.Soc.Inc.(BSI) 1994:117 which has erect spikes, but doesn't show the color of the flowers (he describes it as blue-violet). He is discussing the possibility to include it as a variety of T.fasciculata, which is already a complicated species.
• Derek Butcher (20 Mar 1999): This plant was collected many miles away from the stamping grounds of T.beutelspacheri which is in the State of Chiapas. AND it doesn't have lepidote tips to the floral bracts. The yellow Floral bracts remind me of another Matuda plant T. flavobracteata which has been lumped under T. fasciculata even though its posterior sepals are said to be free. This plant comes from the State of Vera Cruz just as far away! Perhaps someone can come up with a map of Mexico showing where all the different forms of T. fasciculata and its close allies have been found. Even those from the Caribbean Islands cause headaches! By the way Renate Ehlers has a simple erect spiked plant she was thinking of calling T. beutelspacheri v. unispica! This comes from Chiapas too.
• Lucia Hechavarria (27-8-03): I Think it is T. fasciculata var venocispica
• Eric Gouda (27-8-03)): not a variety name that I could find in the literature, do you have a refference, authors?

Send your reply, using the form, thanks E.J.Gouda