Key to the Varieties of Tillandsia cyanea
1. Scape short and mostly hidden by the leaves
2.Spikes elliptic, to 20-flowered; petal-blade wholly deep violet. var cyanea.
2.Spikes broadly oblong, many-flowered; petal-blades blue with a white eye at base.
var tricolor.
Notes by Gilmartin in 1972 It is interesting to note that capsules are rarely found upon any of the noncultivated specimens of any of the varieties of T. cyanea. Capsules have not been mentioned in the literature. It would seem that reproduction is largely vegetative. This would possibly explain the comment of Smith (1951, p. 490) in regard to his comparison of cultivated plants and wild ones. "After a lapse of over 80 years it is still impossible to see any difference between the cultivated material cited above and the specimens that have come directly from their natural habitat." Because sexual reproduction is not the rule with this species there is much less variation than might have occured were crossings to take place frequently. While there is no real evidence that the populations are largely apomictic, there is strong likelihood that this is the case. At any rate, the distribution in Ecuador of such elegantly beautiful plants must have for some time been at least in part due to man. Very likely plants have been picked up and carried to other regions simply because of their attractiveness. If the new locality were at all suitable they would continue growing and producing offshoots.
W. A. Schulz Jr. (1968, personal communication) of Polk Nursery Company, Florida collected a large number of Tillandsia cyanea vars. (? ) in Ecuador in September 1967. Of 41 plants which had flowered he found only 4 with capsules and even here capsules were few, from 1 to 4 capsules per inflorescence. This is the first observation to my knowledge of T. cyanea collected in its natural habitat producing capsules.
HUNTING TILLANDSIA CYANEA by Clarence Kl. Horich in Brom Soc Bull. 6(1): 8-9. 1956
It is now close to seven months that I have roamed Latin America for orchids, during which time I have seen and passed literally millions of bromeliads, many of which I have grown to hate because of their notorious habit to topple over when one climbs a tree for an orchid, thus giving you many an involuntary bath. These I call the "Green Buckets." Other ones, the terrestrials, penetrate one's pants with sharp spines while crossing the savannas and, in general, bromeliads occur throughout tropical America with the abundance of weeds.
Smaller varieties with more highly colorful spikes are less frequent. I recall vividly, having admired a most marvelous bromeliad between Tegucigalpa and the CEIBA property in Honduras; a real weird and obviously rare species which grows near Altaquer (Dept. of Narino ) in southwestern Colombia in precisely the vicinity where one also finds the rare orchid Pescatorea Lehmanni, with a zebra-striped Vriesia ( ? ) north of the Valle de Anton in Panama (Province of Cocle ) .
But if you are specializing in orchids and don't know of any book in existence to help identify your finds, you are bound to lose the interest in bromeliads to a certain extent. That is ... until you once again run into a real gem, such as this plant which I believe to be Tillandsia cyanea and known to be endemic to Ecuador. I have travelled the country's four corners, but found this species only in a very limited section along the Pacific coast where it spreads from the Cordillera de Colonche into southern Manabi.
Unlike all other bromeliads, Tillandsia cyanea, cannot just be "picked...... it requires a real back-country expedition to be located and carried back into what South Americans call civilization. A certain "highway" runs close to the place and this is why I asked my friend to call his driver and use his Packard for transportation. The tire burst three times on the way north to the boundary of the province of Guayas. Actually there is no road, but a spider web of desert tracks with potholes of three feet depth which made us lose our direction several times as each singular driver to tackle this region crosses the country on pure instinct. There are no bridges, but several rivers in the center of one of which we got thoroughly stuck with the motor completely drowned at four A.M. By six A.M. we had pushed the car out while standing in the muddy water to the height of our hips. A day passed and we were ready to leave again. An hour later we rolled over into a cactus studded ditch. The driver was getting nervous by now-but it did not save him from running the car into a sand dune next!
By the time we hit Manabi the lower middle section of the car was thoroughly ground off, as the tire tracks of the inter-provincial trucks to pass through this country are way too deep for a passenger car. Then there was a genuine blowout and before we knew what had happened the steering wheel spun around like mad. It had broken from its connection.
This did it! There was no other car or truck for twenty-four hours which we spent eating green bananas, wild papayas and killing mosquitos. Neither houses nor villages are near, instead the forests are full of huge Bushmaster snakes, three-inch spiders, hordes of ants, butterflies and humming birds. Night fell and with it came the spine curdling noise of the howler monkeys. The morning showed fresh Jaguar tracks only thirty feet distant from the car.
There was nothing we could do but grab machete, pistol and walk several hours into the jungle which is rather dense here and there with open, park-like stretches in between. Housing the trees here are Catasetum,. Cattleya maxima orchids and the stunning Tillandsia cyanea which grows locally by the hundreds. We returned with a good thousand plants, although the car still lies broken down on some odd track in northern Guayas.
This story gives you some idea of the difficulties in obtaining bromeliads and it may justify a good price. Take my word that it is not exaggerated. Now-to the plant itself: Tillandsia cyanea always grows in the tops of trees or shrubs where it receives plenty of light, partly, even, the full sun-blast of the equatorial sky. Those plants which have fallen down from the branches thrive by rooting in the layer of dead foliage of the forest floor, but unfortunately are often attacked by an insect larva and so perish. Also, down here they rarely ever carry flowers.
The root system of arboreal plants is poor. In most instances a few roots attach the plant to the stem, after which the growing rhizome literally winds around the supporting branch or stem, finally resembling the spring of a watch.
The heat in this district is absolutely suffocating, although the Pacific lies hardly six kilometers distant. Oddly enough, the climatic seasons here are entirely reversed to the rest of Ecuador; January to June are the dry months while July to December the heavy rains pour down making all traffic and communications, which, even during the dry season are so utterly poor, become completely impossible.
I have seen this bromeliad, Tillandsia cyanea, cultivated in the garden of Mr. Charles Lankester of Cartago, Costa Rica at relatively high altitude and low temperature. (The altitude of its native place in Ecuador lies at about 300 meters with temperature maximums as high as 112° Fahrenheit, which would suggest a rather warm cultural treatment.)
I am still an orchid hunter, but thought readers of the Bromeliad Bulletin might be interested to learn about the native haunts of Tillandsia cyanea.
1. Scape elongate var. elatior now treated as T. pretiosa See DeRebus I 1994 p34 —SeeSmith & Downs 1977
