Notes
In the spring of 1968, Ed and Betty Gay of Tarzana, California, discovered, in a small canada near the beach west of San Jose del Cabo, a hillside "covered with hechtias" (Gay 1969). Propagules were collected, some of which were later presented to the Huntington Botanical Garden, San Marino, California, and subsequently introduced into the horticultural trade under the name Hechtia montana `Burgundy.' The clone name was in reference to the distinctive red coloring of the leaves as seen in cultivated plants.
The only Hechtia recorded in Baja California is H. montana Brandegee, which, though described by Smith and Downs (1974) as imperfectly known, is a common plant on mountainous hillsides in the Cape Region of southern Baja California, often growing in large masses and known locally as magueycillo. The species also is known on the mainland in Sonora and Sinaloa (Shreve and Wiggins 1964). When a plant from the Gay collection grown at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden bloomed during March, 1994-the only plant known to have bloomed under cultivation-it became evident that it was not Hechtia montana. A search of the literature discloses that it apparently represents an undescribed species. —SeeJ. Bromeliad Soc.
