Singapore Tillandsia

This is a species that we discovered in the early 1980’s in southern Mexican state of Chiapas. In all my years of collecting this was one of the most intriguing discover¬ies I made. The population of T. ehlersiana was growing abundantly on rock cliffs. Just 30 feet directly in front of the rock cliff were oak trees which were loaded with T. caput-medusae, T.seleriana, T.streptophylla and T. brachycaulos. The trees were also covered with ants. The interesting thing about the population of T. ehlersiana is that it was a hybrid swarm. (A hybrid swarm is a population of plants that appear to be natural hybrids. They are in transition to becoming a species.)
I have discovered many natural hybrids in Mexico. The majority of these are found with just a few plants or a very small population. The T. ehlersiana population had three distinct forms. The typical T. ehlersiana, a form that appears to be a natural hybrid of T. ehlersiana and T. streptophylla, and one that is a natural hybrid of T. ehlersiana and T. seleriana.
The true test for a species is that it can reproduce from seed. We have been growing T. ehlersiana from seed for more than 15 years now, and the seedlings turn out true to T. ehlersiana. I do believe that T. ehlersiana was a natural hybrid, and that it has established as a true species. In all the years that I collected and explored, I believe that with this discovery I was witnessing true evolution of a new species.
This same species was discovered 3 years later by Renate Ehlers and was described by Prof. Werner Rauh as T. ehlersiana.
I have a few photos of T. ehlersiana and T. ehlersiana x T. streptophylla on my site at http://www.birdrocktropicals. com. Go to the Tillandsia pages, and check under E and also the Tillandsia hybrids.
This article originally appeared in correspondence from the Brom-L discussion group and since collated & published by Derek Butcher in 2009.

Just where did this expression start in Bromeliads? It means the offsets that occur at the base of the plant. After questioning Brom-L and Round Robin participants on the Internet in August 2005, Geoff Lawn of Perth suggested the answer could well lie in Brom Soc Bull.1952 where Mulford Foster, the then Editor wrote about Muriel Waterman. Anyone who has read about Muriel from her fellow Kiwis will realize she was a one eyed Bromeliad grower and rather eccentric too! Her diaries could well have been destined for the rubbish tip but for the action of Andrew Flower who saved them from a shed in a local Botanical Garden. These make interesting reading and suggest her main contacts were in England or the USA. She had very little contact with Aussies.

This is what appeared in the Bulletin with a drawing of pups by Mulford Foster where the caption reads “Mrs Waterman is never in the doghouse but she is always finding “pups” on her bromeliads”.

OUR NEW ZEALAND TRUSTEE in Brom. Soc. Bull. 2(4):1952

Mrs. Muriel Waterman is our honorary trustee from New Zealand; there are few members who have worked so actively for new members in our straggling Society. So infectious is her enthusiasm that ten recruits have succumbed to her spell! And she doesn’t just let it go at that; she buys the last ten copies of the bromeliad issue of the Missouri Botanical Bulletin (Sept. 1945) and sends them to the New Zealand members for Christmas with a neat reminder, that their renewal to the 1952 Bromeliad Bulletin is due. And, as if that were not enough she has paid for three subscriptions so that she can have two extra copies each month just to loan around (for bait we suspect! ). This is the real bromel booster spirit. We believe that before long they will have enough members to form a local chapter of Bromel Boosters, Down Under.

Her enthusiasm is classic! No one but a genuine plant lover could express herself so originally, so simply and effectively. She does not only converse about her plants but they speak to her.

Mrs. Waterman lives several miles from Auckland. When a package of bromels arrived sometime ago she went into a whirl after receiving a telegram from the airport which stated; “Please uplift carton bromeliads from Pan American:” What happened after that is best described, in her own words. “Not being dressed for a trip into the city I rushed into a covering long coat and tore down the road adjusting clothes, hat and buttons as I flew, yelling to the busman who was almost out of earshot; to wait for me. Luckily; he happened to see me, or, I would have had to wait another hour, and it is an hour’s ride to the airport. You can imagine with what animated suspension of anticipation I made that ride. It was a big thrill to behold my box of bromels being unpacked for inspection.”

“When finished and back in the bus, I clasped the box to my bosom, practically `talking’ to them all the way home. What an event on this side of the world! After rushing into the house, I hurried through tea, since it was 5:15, then hurriedly shut up twelve coops of baby bantams, (a ceremony I usually do more lovingly) told my husband not to call me for anything under the sun! Then proceeded with my precious cargo to the sanctum of my glasshouse where I fondly unpacked each prize from another world. As I carefully unwrapped each plant I dipped it, head down, into one of two buckets of tepid water, (each a different depth); I allowed them to drain and then planted each treasure with its already prepared name-label. Finally I sprinkled the lot with a child’s watering can. Already they looked as if they had come from a greenhouse across the street instead of from half way round the world!”

Clearly Mulford Foster was impressed with the word ‘Pups’ and we know from reports from others that it was a word that Mulford frequently used. I feel sure it was because of his great influence on bromeliad growers for nearly 30 years that this expression is now so widespread. It is catchy and has less letters than offsets or offshoots, and never gets confused with cuttings! Why pups and not kittens or chickens will remain a mystery. There is also a suspicion that this term was used even earlier with Agaves and Aloes of Succulent plant interest. It should be noted that these too are monocotyledons like Bromeliaceae and offset similarly.

And now to the word ‘keiki’ that means child in Hawaiian. This word is used by plant growers in Hawaii for any offset to a plant whether Banana or Bromeliad! Interestingly it has been used to describe the offsetting seen in so many orchids for which Hawaii is famed, that occur high on the stem and not at the base. This has lead it to be associated with this sort of happening in Bromeliaceae, say Tillandsia secunda or even T. dasyliriifolia (see Ramirez in J. Brom. Soc. 54(3): 112-121. 2004).

It is a trait of the English language to experiment with new words or new meanings as though there are not enough already! Some continue and some get discarded. I am sure that ‘Pup’ will remain in Bromeliad usage for many years to come but will always refer to ‘normal’ offsetting at the base. The seedling type offsets that sometimes occur in Alcantarea and saxicolous Tillandsias have yet to have their own special name. It has been said that Hair Pups and Grass Pups have been used to describe these in the USA but these have not, as yet, appeared in any official publication of the BSI. Which one will appear first? Which one will prevail? Other offsetting in the inflorescence such as you find in Orthophytum and others, will get the name adventitious added to them if only to denote they are emerging in an unexpected place. Outside Hawaii, will ‘keiki’ apply just to these floral phenomena? Who knows?

Finally you would have noticed the use of the word ‘bromel’ by Mulford Foster which was a word he coined. Much to the disgust of both Racine and Mulford, Aussies further reduced it to broms!

This all started in 2006 when Len Colgan got some plants from Renate Ehlers called T. chapalillaensis and I was lucky to get one of them. I knew about the plant and was one of those pointing out to Renate that it looked like a natural hybrid. While Renate wrote up a description in 2006 it has not yet been published. This is what Renate reported
“I originally obtained this Tillandsia in 1992 from my friend Jürgen Lautner, Goettingen, Germany. He thought this was a new and undescribed species. But when I saw the flowers, I was nearly certain, that it was a hybrid. The two-coloured petals seem to be a sign of hybrid origin. Juergen insisted that this plant is very common near Chapalilla and that he did not see any putative parents for a hybrid. – But I did not trust him! Nevertheless I made a description which I gave Dr. Walter Till in May 1992. He commented that this was a hybrid between T.juncea and T. schiedeana. I told Juergen that I was not going to describe his plant as it was a hybrid.

In 2004 I was on a trip in Mexico with Jürgen and Ulrich Lautner, Manfred Kretz and Wolfgang Schindhelm. On February 18th, we were driving from Puerto Vallarta in the direction of Tepic on the MEX 15, and we intended to go to the area where Jürgen found his dubious plant, and I was very curious. About 18 km before we reached Chapalilla, we saw the trees coated with many tillandsias. I really was very, very surprised when I saw, that this was THE PLANT by the thousands, growing here. It was not the same place where Jürgen had collected his plants in March 1992, only in the same area. The trees were crowded with it, mostly growing in big clumps, but there also were single growing plants. We also found a few T. pseudosetacea, T. achyrostachys and T. makoyana and rarely T. ionantha.

The plant is growing in large numbers in this region, not only restricted to one location. There was not one T. schiedeana Steudel nor T. juncea Swartz to be seen at this location, and as well, we did not see any in the wider area. At the place where we collected, I would guess there were thousands of T. chapalillaensis, hundreds of T. pseudosetacea, tens of T. makoyana and of T. achyrostachys and a few T. ionantha.

Now I had to admit that Jürgen Lautner was right: the plant is not a hybrid but a good new species. Maybe, or more likely, the plants are of hybrid origin. When a plant has densely populated a large area in such huge numbers and is fertile, it should be treated as a species, not as a hybrid. In the meantime, Jürgen Lautner has adult seedlings from seed he collected in 1992, that flowered in the Botanical Garden of Goettingen several times, and they all look alike.”

2009 saw my plant flower and yes it had bicolored petals but it kept bugging me that I had seen this plant before and yes I found it – called T. schiedeana ‘Scurfy’ that I had got from Maurice Kellett in 1990. In 1991 I also acquired a man-made hybrid from Rolly Reilly called T. schiedeana x T. juncea AND another called T. schiedeana x juncea x schiedeana. The original crossing must have been done in the early 1970’s with the next three way crossing done in the 1980’s but no records were kept. I could cope with the identity of two parents but felt that the plants with three parents needed a name I could record in my Australian hybrids checklist. Rolly came up with ‘Tooshie’ ( for two schiedeana!!) Most were closer to T. schiedeana but some were not far off the formula parent. All that I flowered had a bicolored petals as would be expected from this parentage. Could the ones looking like T. schiedeana have lost their labels and casually given the name of T. schiedeana? This prompted me to start asking Tillnuts to start checking their flowers because all references, including synonyms, to T. schiedeana show either yellow or green petals.

We now move to Tillandsia pueblensis var glabrior which had its name changed to Tillandsia schiedeana subspecies glabrior by Sue Gardner in Selbyana:361-379;1983 & Jour. Brom. Soc 1987 p 163-4
She also placed Tillandsia schiedeana var. totolapensis Weber & Ehlers, in Journ. Bromeliad Soc. 33: 30-33, 1983 under synonymy.
In 2004 Lopez-Ferrari, Espejo & I. Ramirez, promoted it to species status in Selbyana 25(1); 60. 2004 but did not formally describe it. Luckily Weber & Ehlers did a good description of var. totolapensis so we don’t have to rely just on a herbarium specimen.

This is what Sue Gardner had to say:
“Dr. Lyman B. Smith described this plant originally as T. pueblensis var. glabrior from a few dried specimens in 1958. Without fresh flowers, the plant, with its thick, curved, gray-lepidote leaves and small, simple spike, appears similar to T. pueblensis. In 1983, Wilhelm Weber and Renate Ehlers described this same plant as Tillandsia schiedeana var. totolapensis from a living specimen collected in Mexico. Since Dr. Smith’s varietal name has precedence it must be conserved even though the species epithet is corrected.

Although this subspecies is more closely related to T. schiedeana than to T. pueblensis, it is distinct from the former by several significant characteristics, most of which are associated with saxicoly. For example, it forms large clumps of a single clone, and individual rosettes have both long, descending stolons and thick, upwardly secund leaves. These characteristics are often found in saxicolous species including T. pueblensis.

Tillandsia schiedeana subsp. schiedeana is widespread, and occurs from northern Mexico to northern South America. Specimens of this subspecies also occur sympatrically with subsp. glabrior. Specimens of the typical subspecies occur also in saxicolous forms. They do not, however, display modification of the typical spherical clumps of stellate rosettes with straight leaf blades joining the leaf sheath at a 90 degree angle. Similarities in inflorescence characteristics of the two taxa support conspecific classification, however, assignment to different subspecies indicates a greater difference than varietal classification does.

Pigmentation of the flowers varies between and within the two subspecies. A larger amount of red pigmentation is typical of the petals of subsp. glabrior with one-half to all of the petal lobes red, whereas in samples from six populations of the typical subspecies only a few specimens in each were found to have a small amount of red pigment at the base of the primarily yellow petals.”

The last paragraph makes interesting reading. While she does stress that there is a predominance of red in ‘glabrior’ the small occurrence of a reddish factor in ‘schiedeana’ can be explained by hybridity! Which brings us back to the premise that petals of T. schiedeana are either yellow or with green tones and when there are red tones involved you should also look at plant and leaf shape.

We now return to the first paragraph to discuss ‘Scurfy’ Maurice can find no record of why he gave this name to the plant and I do not believe there is any link with the Australia man-made hybrids. It is just as likely that this plant came to Australia when he collected with Lau in the 1980’s. That way I can see tenuous links to T. chapalillaensis but not enough to change the name. Thus the name Tillandsia ‘Scurfy’ should be registered and if any of you are growing this ‘schiedeana’ with bicolored petals please change the name.

It is increasing difficult to ignore the fact that new tilly purchases can sometimes be a little frustrating. However, it does not apply across the board but certainly some are more demanding than the rest. This 10-minute digest will critically trace and provide a simple yet effective articulation of how to smoothen the transition.

When we all first pick up a Tillandsia from a seller, we ought to have question ourselves several times if we’re able to keep them alive and perhaps a place for them to thrive in. Most believe that by sticking to the rule and norm will certainly provide a great elucidation for their pondering questions! In a way, this perspective is certainly a great way to expand your collection and unbelievably, many have continued to stick to the general ones to prevent the fallacy from happening.

What happens to those that are slightly tougher in terms of care & what happens to those really difficult ones? For the purpose of this digest, we will touch on the slightly tougher ones and how a smoother transistion will provide a certain amount of success in future.
Let us start with the paradox of Tillandsia. Mid level or intermediate growing Tillandsia.

Despite various warning, I’m quite certain that many of us have ventured on the broad array of intermediate growing Tillandsia. This is not surprising as we want more of them, and to provide a slight challenge during our process of growing Tillandsia. So how can we grow some intermediate ones without the heart-breaking process? From a very general experiment, if one is able to provide 7 – 10 degrees (Celsius) difference between day and night time, I’m quite confident to say that the intermediate ones are able to grow and thrive. This is certainly an advantage for growing indoor as the humidity is much lower as compared to outdoor.

The purpose and understanding of a lower humidity will act as a means to prevent rotting to occur for intermediate ones. The key finding is to have lower humidity and lesser water that aids in the growing of intermediate Tillandsia. This 2 pronged approach is evidently understood when intermediate Tillandsia do not receive as much water as their forest counterpart (bulbosa) and have a lower humidity to begin with.
Consequently, it is a matter of reducing the watering frequency to once a week or even up to once every fortnight! Yes, surprisingly, isn’t it. This make watering even easier as they do not require so much water as the usual ionantha species and cultivars. Hence, this 2 pronged approach might give you a glimpse on the insights of what constitutes the possibility of growing intermediate Tillandsia even in hot & humid Singapore.

We’re experiencing an uphill battle with high humidity and heat from the outdoors, thus an indoor grower might consider this alternative. A less watering Tillandsia to begin with.

So how does a smoother transition helps in growing these intermediate Tillandsia? The transition provides the Tillandsia a chance to realign its habit into our culture; this process should be as stress free as possible. In other words, choosing a place for it and let it grow without watering for a week or so. A bright place is great but certainly no direct 7 hours of sunlight. On the other hand, please check if the seller did any previous watering or soaking prior to your purchase because it makes a HUGE difference if the seller had soak it for 12 hours before you purchase. Imagine this; you water your newly purchased Tillandsia and start watering them and within the month they die on you. Why is this so? Yes the initial shock of continuous watering happens when we water them after the purchase when the seller had already watered them copiously.

More often than not, sellers water their Tillandsia very well before selling as they give them the robust look. So the next time we purchase a Tillandsia do remember to ask if these Tillandsia had any prior soaking done. If they’re soaked or watered before, please leave them alone in your new environment for at least a good 1 week (intermediate types) before commencing its watering (once a week or once every 2weeks).

What triggers this experiment is that i often heard complaints about their intermediate Tillandsia death. Hence, GF and I went out to try to understand this prodigy and myth that intermediate Tillandsia are impossible to grow. However, we will like to prove that it is actually on the same continuum as those of ionantha. Easy and fuss free. The only difference is that they dislike continuous watering on a daily basis, but given bright light, great air circulation and minimal watering, their growth can be seen within the month!

However, a major limitation to this experiment is that the sample size is small and cannot be a direct recommendation across the board. In addition, that is the joy of growing Tillandsia isn’t it? We win some we lose some; we cannot win them all, can we?

In sum, this digest had let us understand the fundamental elements of what intermediate Tillandsia like and how a transision process might augment the survivability of intermediate Tillandsia in Singapore. Hence, the next time you pick up an intermediate Tillandsia, give it a second though that it might even do better than your ionantha! Possible? Your call.

Cheers!

What are the two main elements that derive a rotting Tillandsia? Over watering and lack of air circulation are the two main contributing factors that lead to a rotting Tillandsia. However, even without water, Tillandsia will inevitably rot due to insufficient air circulation although the process of over watering augments the effects of it.

It is becoming difficult to ignore the fact that these are the two crucial aspect of growing Tillandsia. How can one make sure there are sufficient airflow and sufficient breeze to keep the Tillandsia happy?
A general rule will be a slight breeze passing through the exterior of the leaves and towards you. A constant airflow will be sufficient.

The purpose of air circulation aids in the exchange of gases and the removal of harmful bacteria and virus away from the Tillandsia. Additionally, without sufficient air circulation, the Tillandsia dies a slow and painful death. The reason why air circulation is so crucial to the fundamental success of growing Tillandsia, is they live in high places in situ.

Hence, the constant airy condition is what they are asking for. So placement of Tillandsia indoor can be a challenging aspect, however, a good gauge is as close as possible to the outside.
Once Tillandsia have sufficient air circulation, the rotting process is diminish in a large scale, but overwatering comes into play. When you put it in an airy environment, the Tillandsia tend to dry up a tad quicker and that is also the reason why you water more often. Watering at night is a dangerous and risky methodology in gardening aspect. It remains true to CAM plants, whereby they absorb CO2 at night, and by watering them at night, robs away their chance to complete the CAM process. Like I’ve mentioned at the hort park talk that in theory it is not a good practice, however, I’m the one who goes along the grain with it. I water them at night for as long as I’ve remembered keeping Tillandsia.

The reason why I did this is due to certain circumstances, firstly, the air conditioning has a lower humidity and secondly, its cooler too. So what might those two factor contributes to me watering at night?

Reason being is simple, the low humidity quickly dries out the Tillandsia leaves giving them sufficient time to continue the process of absorbing CO2 at night. The second factor is that Tillandsia opens their stomata according to the temperature. A high noon time temperature forces the stomata to remain close for as long as the temperature remains high. Hence, with lower temperature, it improves the breathing process. Taken together, once the low humidity dries the surface of the Tillandsia leaves, the ambient low temperature quickly provides the stomata to open and continue the process.

So theoretically speaking, CAM plants do not like watering at night for long periods. However, I believe that given adequate low night time temperature and humidity, will give you even more flexibility in terms of watering timing. However, as like most perspective, having low night time temperature and humidity has its disadvantages too. One of them is that Tillandsia dries out quicker than you can provide water for them.

In other words, if you miss watering for 2-3 days, the effects of dehydration are clearly evident. Well we can’t win all can we?
Speaking of the two factors, air and water, both should be harmonising together learning that one depends on one another and not as a differentiated aspect. For this reason, it is conclusive that without air-circulation will certainly bring the demise of your Tillandsia, but without water, no living things will survive.