Tillandsia stricta Sol.
Literature references:
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Comments:
- Tillandsia stricta has long been known as the most common Brazilian tillandsia and it is baffling to us today that Lindley described a T. stricta not yet in full bloom. The solution to the puzzle is probably that Lindley in his time did not know T. stricta and mistakenly described in 1830 in the Botanical Register with an illustration on plate 1338 Till. aeranthos as T. stricta, and thus the real T. stricta must have appeared new to him and he described it as T. rosea.
Now we must explain which species Hooker described as T. recurvifolia. As we saw, Hooker in his description said that it was closely related to T. pulchella (today T. tenuifolia), and this remark probably caused Till to think of it as a synonym for T. tenuifolia. But if we observe the sentence in the description "Calyx . . . united into a tube at the base", and compare the depiction of the flowers with the sepals (fig. 1), then we see clearly that the sepals are in today's parlance "equally subfree or short connate," and that the inferior sepals are .not at all fused highly as in T. tenuifolia! On this point the identity of T. recurvifolia is clearly distinguished from T. tenuifolia.
The habitat citation is also puzzling. Hooker writes that the plant was sent to Kew from Panama by W. D. Christie. But as mentioned above, Mez excluded this possibility. Now a comparison of citations of other herbarium specimens of various Bromeliaceae shows that Christie never collected plants in Panama, but had collected several in Parana! In Hooker's time there were no typewriters and Hooker's handwritten manuscript was possibly the cause of this distortion by the typesetter.
Now the area of the species in question is narrowed to southern Brazil and Argentina. (Christie also collected T. vernicosa and T. ixioides with the notation "Parana". According to the distribution of T. ixioides, then, the note does not refer to the Brazilian state Parana and not to the river either, but probably to the city Parana in the province Entre Rios in Argentina!) From these two areas the only white-flowered tillandsias of this general form would be an albino form of T. stricta or T. meridionalis. The white-flowered T. pohliana Mez is clearly different and can be excluded. But for an albino T. stricta the petals appear to be too wide and too recurved. Also for T. stricta the long, awl-like blades of the lower flower bracts are missing. There is a closer resemblance to T. meridionalis Baker 1888 - except for the atypically short inflorescence scape, which, however, may have been somewhat stunted by transporation conditions and cultivation in Kew. We note this phenomenon even today in some plants that have not received optimal care.
A difference still not explained is the unmentioned typical scaling of the sepals in T. meridionalis. But this can stem from the fact that the depiction of the scaling afforded difficulties to the artist. Even on the leaves there is no indication of scaling in the drawing, although Hooker mentions them expressly in his description. Hooker may have overlooked them on the sepals or considered them insignificant. Afterall, there are forms of T. meridionalis with only slight scaling only at the tip of the sepals.
Therefore it is best to consider T. recurvifolia Hook. 1861 as probably identical with T. meridionalis Baker 1888, although there is no possibility of an exact test, since, as mentioned above, there is probably no type specimen of T. recurvifolia preserved for examination. —See Smith & Downs 1977
- Culture and use: Very beautiful in flower; easily grown like an epiphyte in greenhouse and window; demands little watering, a moderately humid and not too bright location, can be propagated by seed, on vertical wire gauze. —See Gouda 1987
