Distributed from coastal Oaxaca to Jalisco, Mexico, this species has been confused with T. fasciculata var. convexispica (Rauh 1981) . Matuda compares it to T. lampropoda but its resemblance to that species is superficial. I find it most similar to T. compressa and T. buchii. it differs from the first in thick, inflated spikes, dense, spreading floral bracts that are rose on the proximal spike, and yellow distally. The spike is short when the first flowers emerge. It continues to elongate and produce flowers over an extended period.
At maturity the scape decurves under the weight of the spike, the spike apex curves upward. Tillandsia buchii, although a much smaller plant, shares an inflated spike, although it is much shorter. —SeeGardner 1982p. 145
most abundant in humid deciduous or subdeciduous forest, sometimes in pine-oak forest.
Some of our material was originally identified as representing a variety of the widespread Tillandsia fasciculata, but in the Pacific lowlands of Nueva Galicia T. jaliscomonticola seems amply distinct from T. fasciculata. —SeeMcVaugh 1989
