Desc.by Gilmartin in Bromeliaceae of Ecuador 1972
PLANT ca. 3m tall by estimated 1m in diameter;
LEAVES ca. 65 cm long,
BLADES 9.0-10.0 cm wide, pale green, lingulate, apex acute to apiculate, subglabrous: SHEATH, ca. 20 cm long by 13 cm wide, conspicuous, dark brown ovate; INFLORESCENCE ca. 2 m long by 16 cm in diameter, erect, glabrous, bipinnate, lax; PRIMARY BRACTS 5.0-5.5 cm long by 3.0-3.5 cm wide. spreading, ovate, apex acute to attenuate, subglabrous;
BRANCHES 14-16 cm long by 3.5-4.0cm wide, spreading, secund-flowered, flowers 10 to 12 per branch, with pedicels ca. 7 mm long, ca. 3.5 cm apart, stipe 3.0-4.0 cm long with one sterile bract, this just subtending the first fertile floral bract and at some distance from the axis;
FLORAL BRACTS 2.5-3.4 cm long by 2.3 cm wide, erect, yellow, elliptic, ecarinate, glabrous without, lepidote within, apex acute, coriaceous, ovary obscurely nerved, erect but scarcely imbricate;
SEPALS 2.2-2.3 cm long by ca. 1.4 cm wide, erect, obovate, obtuse, ecarinate, strongly nerved, coriaceous, glabrous without, densely punctulate within, free, green;
PETALS ca. 2.6 cm long by 6 mm wide, scarcely lobed, purple;
OVARY 1.2 cm long by 6-7mm wide, stamens often included by 2-3 mm; distance between flowers ca. 1.2 cm, in flower around June-August.
This species has apparently been collected only one time and may be restricted in its distribution to the area around Sevilla de Oro. Certainly for such a conspicuous plant to have been missed from other sites where collectors have worked seems unlikely.
Tillandsia cucullata L. B. Smith by Werner Rauh in J. Brom. Soc.26(6): 252-5. 1976
In her book The Bromeliaceae of Ecuador (1972) A. J. Gilmartin writes on page 164 that "this species has apparently been collected only one time and may be restricted in its distribution to the area around Sevilla de Oro (Prov. Azuay). Certainly for such a conspicuous plant to have been missed from other sites where collectors worked seems unlikely".
On our trip to Ecuador in 1975 we found far northwards in the Prov. Pichincha along the new road Quito-Baeza-Lago Agrio, above the small village Papayacta in a destroyed cloud forest in an altitude between 2800m and 2400m a big Tillandsia which is doubtless in comparison with the type (Camp E-4952) Tillandsia cucullata L. B. Smith. It grows there as an epiphyte and is not very rare, but young plants are difficult to collect, for there are more big tillandsias as T. buseri, T. ionochroma, T. complanata and others, and young plants of the different species are not easy to distinguish one from the other.
T. cucullata is really a beautiful and attractive plant which belongs in this group of those Tillandsias (subgenus Tillandsia), which have secund (hanging) flowers as T. mima L. B. Smith, T. secunda H. B. K. and T. marnieri-lapostollei Rauh. All these mentioned species grow as terrestrials or on steep rock walls; only T. cucullata seems to be epiphytic. As no photographs exist in literature of this exciting plant, we will picture it in the following short article.
T. cucullata is in flower up to 2 (-3)m tall and forms a big rosette of a diameter of lm and more. The dark-brown ovate sheaths of the leaves are up to 25cm long and 10-15cm wide; the blades are 50-60cm long, above the sheaths 9-13cm wide, pale green, ligulate, acute and subglabrous.
The erect scape is short, up to 50cm long, very thick and shorter than the leaf rosette. The scape bracts are short laminate, longer than the internodes and carmine-red.
The erect, bipinnate inflorescence is 1,2 to 1,8m long, up to 30cm in diameter, with numerous, mostly horizontal spreading spikes. Axis very thick, bright carmine-red and gray lepidote.
Primary bracts broad triangle, acute to attenuate, subglabrous, carmine-red lepidote, longer than the 3-4 long stipe of the spikes. Those are 8-16cm long, spreading and secund flowered;
flowers 10-12 per branch, short and thick pedicelled, lax, arranged so that the flexuous carmine-red axis is visible.
Floral bracts cucullate, up to 3,5cm long and 2,5cm wide, coriaceous, acute, carinate, inconspicuous lepidote without, denser lepidote within, bright dark carmine-red, longer than the sepals, these up to 2,2cm long, the posterior slightly carinate, glabrous, green to carmine-red;
petals up to 2,5cm long, purple-violet, white at the base, with obtuse recurved tips. Stamens and style included,
fruits up to 5cm long, green, hanging.
Collection number: Rauh 37546 (15.6.76)
The discovery of the new locality of T. cucullata means that the area is much more extended than A. J. Gilmartin assumed, and the author is quite sure that T. cucullata will also be found in the region between the two known localities.
Our plant differs from the original description of L. B. Smith by the carmine-red (not yellow) and carinate (not ecarinate) floral bracts. —SeeJ. Bromeliad Soc.
