Boker & Barfuss 2023 (Article) Tillandsia [bi-lingual]

Observed in Cultivation: Tillandsia rudolfii

Author(s):—A. Böker & M.H.J. Barfuss

Publication:—Die Bromelie 2022(2/3): 64-67. (2022)

German title:—In Kultur beobachtet: Tillandsia rudolfii

Abstract:—A green Tillandsia that impresses with its pink and cone-shaped inflorescence with purple flowers and that is not often cultivated in our collections is T. rudolfii E. Groß & Hase (2003). The species was discovered growing epiphytically at an altitude of 2700 m a.s.l. in a mountain rainforest about 20 km west of Cuenca by Rudolf Wülfinghoff (s.n.) during a trip to Ecuador in 1992. The plant with the green, sparsely scaled leaves, which forms an inconspicuous, not too large water-impounding funnelform rosette, was thereafter kept in the bromelia collection of Frank Hase, our sadly deceased pope of funnel bromeliads to be cultivated in cool conditions. It came into flower for the first time in 1998 but could not be assigned to any known species. Fortunately, it was a polycarp plant that formed two renewal shoots, which flowered again in 2002 and made a detailed examination by Elvira Groß possible. An attempt at identification led to the conclusion that it must be a new species, which led to the new description in “Die Bromelie” in 2003. The species is assigned to the Tillandsia bilfora complex (Barfuss et al. 2016) and belongs to the wider relationship of T. biflora Ruiz & Pav. (Ruiz & Pavon 1802) and T. inochroma André ex Mez (1896). Tillandsia rudolfii was named after its discoverer Rudolf Wülfinghoff, who has already found several new species in Ecuador. The presented plant originally comes from the bromeliad collection of Frank Hase and is a descendant of a plant from the type collection.