Tillandsia pretiosa by Werner Rauh in J Brom Soc 34: 266. 1984
Tillandsia pretiosa is a beautiful plant, very rare in cultivation, and known only from Ecuador in the valley of Mindo and the Pichincha region. We collected this plant in July 1983 in the Mindo Valley in a mist-forest at an altitude of 1700 m.
T. pretiosa belongs to the group of T lindenii, T. umbellata (please see Journal 31(5): 200-202; 1981), T. anceps, and T. cyanea. The main difference between T. lindenii, T, umbellata, and T. pretiosa is, according to L. B. Smith, the surface structure of the floral bracts. In the first two these are prominently nerved, in T. pretiosa even more so. All three species possess simple, complanate, sword-shaped inflorescences with deep blue petal-blades with a white eye at the base. While the ensiform inflorescences are arranged in a single plane and are dense in T. lindenii and T. umbellata, they are lax in T. pretiosa after flowering.
Following is a short diagnosis:
Plant stemless, flowering up to 50 cm high.
Leaves densely rosulate.
Sheaths distinct, broad ovate, concolorous with the blades; these are linear-triangular, long attenuate, 2 cm wide, nearly glabrous.
Scape erect, shorter than the leaves;
scape bracts densely imbricate, the lower ones subfoliate, the upper ones with a reduced blade, abruptly acute.
Inflorescence simple, long ovate-acute, strongly complanate, up to 20 cm long and 11 cm wide, ± 18-flowered.
Floral bracts spreading at and after anthesis, scarcely concealing or covering the pale violet rhachis, up to 55 mm long, exceeding the sepals, carinate, even, glabrous, pale violet.
Flowers spreading up to suberect.
Sepals free, tong-elliptical, acuminate, 4.5 cm long, the posterior ones carinate, pale violet to white.
Petals up to 8 cm long, with large, spreading, somewhat rolled-back, bright blue blades with a white eye at the base.
Style and stamens deeply included.
Collection number: Rauh 60212, July 83. —SeeSmith & Downs 1977
