Bromelia alsodes St.John
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- During the summer of 1975, while doing some field work in Mexico, we visited the Puerto Vallarta area in search of bromeliads. We took the road north out of Puerto Vallarta toward Tepic. Not too many miles from the town the road winds up into a set of hills where we began to feel that we were really in the tropics. This feeling was due mostly to the forms of the trees - tall, with bare trunks and a canopy of green leaves - and, of course, to their epiphytic bromeliads. In the 20 miles from Puerto Vallarta we found 6 different epiphytic species, among them Tillandsia baileyi Rose, T. polystachya L., Aechmea mexicana Baker, and possibly T. ignesiae Mez. The others were only in leaf and we were unable to identify these, although they were also probably Tillandsias.
After crossing the hills we found ourselves once again in the hot, humid lowlands. Here we experienced some spectacular thunderstorms, which, together with the croakings of the chorus frogs at night, produced an unbelievable cacophony of noise that, needless to say, made sleeping difficult.
Some 20 miles south of Compostela, in the state of Nayarit, just out of the small town of Las Veras, we began to notice a terrestrial bromel growing along the east side of the road, almost as if it had been planted as a fence or hedge. They were beauties, about a meter tall, with the inner leaves of the rosette turning bright red in flower and fruit; the scape-bracts were also red while the outer leaves of the rosette were grey-green. The inflorescence was stubby and compact, and covered with dense tufts of hairs. Unfortunately the delicate pink and white flowers were protected by some very wicked recurved spines on the margins of the leaves and bracts, a fact which quickly became apparent when we tried to gather population samples for later study.
After returning home, we found that the identity of this collection posed an interesting problem. The plants were definitely a species of the genus Bromelia, but seemed to be a combination of two species, Bromelia pinguin L. and Bromelia sylvestris Willd. without fitting either one perfectly. At the same time, Bromelia sylvestris turned out to be an invalid name, and had been changed to B. alsodes St. John. Some explanations are in order!
First of all the name change should be mentioned since the old name of Bromelia sylvestris was used for many years. Harold St. John, in 1965 while working on Pandanus (Pandanaceae), the screw-pine of the Old World tropics, came across an Indian species of Pandanus that had been named Bromelia sylvestris. Even though this name was later changed, the International Rules of Botanical Nomenclature stipulate that the name Bromelia sylvestris, having once been applied to a species, should never be used for a different species. Apparently, Willdenow, who first described this species, illegally and unknowingly, had used the name, publication communication being a problem in the late 1700's and early 1800's. Thus, St. John had to find a new name for this species and adopted alsodes, "...Greek adjective...`woodsy', and is here chosen to continue the meaning of the original epithet" (St. John, 1965).
Our search had now narrowed to the two species mentioned above, Bromelia alsodes (properly) and B. pinguin. Further inspection showed us that, by the descriptions in North American Flora, Vol. 19, part 2, Bromeliaceae (Smith, 1938), our plant seemed to have the flowers of Bromelia alsodes, while the fruit had the shape of B. pinguin. Yet, the fruit was smooth, not warty, a character which does not fit either species. (Compare characters, Tables 1 and 2). We decided that our plant was a closer match to Bromelia alsodes, but with a vaguely uncomfortable feeling since the fruit seemed such a good match in size and shape to B. pinguin. Dr. Lyman B. Smith helped us to sort out the problem. He checked the herbarium material at the Smithsonian Institution, and the fruit of Bromelia alsodes is indeed smooth. There had been an error in the species description. The ellipsoid ovary and ovoid berry of our collection apparently are merely some of the variations which can occur within the species and should not be construed as a diagnostic character to separate the two species.
Thus, after some long searching, we found the identity of our mystery Bromelia to be B. alsodes St. John. We find that this is a range extension, the former distribution being Vera Cruz, the Yucatan Peninsula, and Honduras (Smith, 1938). With our collections, the species is now also known to grow on the western coast of Mexico.
While doing some of the research for this paper, we also found the original drawing of the species; this drawing was made from a plant growing in England, propagated from the original collection that was growing in the Berlin Botanical Garden. A picture of this drawing is included; we could hardly resist its beauty and wished to share it. It orginally appeared in Curtis's Botanical Magazine with an expanded description by John Sims (1823).
We have also included a corrected species description of Bromelia alsodes based on our collections and the description in North America Flora (Smith, 1938).
Bromelia alsodes St. John. Taxon 14 (1) :29
Bromelia sylvestris Willd. ex Link., Hort. Berol. 308, 1821; descr. expanded by Sims, Bot. Mag. 50a.2392, 1823.
Agallostachys sylvestris Beer. Bromel. 35. 1857.
NOTE: A population sample of eight plants was collected. The plants were numerous locally and rather close together making collecting difficult. They were growing off to the side of the road in a very flat area and the ground was exceedingly damp with some standing water from the previous night's rain; club mosses growing on the ground between some of the plants attested the moist conditions. The plants looked as if they had been planted in some sort of order; Smith (1938) says that the TYPE was "described from cultivation". —See Neighbors 1977 p. 27(5): 195-200
- Local name. Ahuama (Mexico, Sinaloa); jalbay (Yucatan). —See Smith & Downs 1979
- This species, long known from the lowlands of Sinaloa, seems otherwise unreported from the Pacific side of Mexico. It may be more common than now known. perhaps having been overlooked or mistaken for the better-known Bromelia pinguin. —See McVaugh 1989
