Tillandsia engleriana Wittm.
Literature references:
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Comments:
- After examining a number of new collections from Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia, I can find no features to consistently separate Tillandsia engleriana and Vriesea appendiculata. Both have primary bracts that exceed the lateral branches toward the base of the inflorescence. Bract and floral dimensions are similar. Both have a declinate to pendulous inflorescence. Flower color has been reported as white, rose, blue or violet but a color photograph of an Ecuadorian collection (Jose Manzanares JM 0828, SEL) shows the exserted portion of the semitubular corolla as being blue with a white apex. The bracts are rose.
Although the photo of the type of T. engleriana shows a very dense and narrow inflorescence with erect branches, the very strict rosette of leaves accompanying the inflorescence appears to have been rolled into a tight tube during preservation. I believe the inflorescence received a similar treatment.
Even though most of this taxon's closest relatives now reside in Vriesea (V. heterandra, chontalensis, appenii, etc.) I decline to make a new combination that at best will be temporary and at worst unnatural and misleading. This taxon has nothing in common with the "true vrieseas" that are nearly restricted to eastern Brazil but is a member of the "small-flowered-grey Vriesea" complex (Luther 1995) that has its greatest diversity in the northern Andes. Tillandsia engleriana is known from the eastern slopes of the Andes in Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia at 2000-3000 m elevation. —See Luther 1999b p. 13
