by WERNER RAUH in J. Brom. Soc. 32: 95. 1982
In the Journal of the Bromeliad Society Vol. XXXI, Nr. 5, on page 218, one of my photographs was reproduced as Tillandsia diguetii. The plant in the photograph however, is not T. diguetii, but represents a new species, which I had received originally under the name T. diguetii from Dr. Jorg Rutschmann of Basel, Switzerland. The plant has a rosette about 20 cm high, the leaves are strict erect and the inflorescence is deeply sunken into the center of the rosette, much exceeded by the blades.(Described as T. nidus) T. diguetii, known only from the type locality of Manzanilla, Colima, Mexico, was re-collected by Renate Ehlers of Stuttgart, Germany, and I am very obliged to her for the flowering specimen that she gave me so that we are now able to show the real T. diguetii which in the vegetative state resembles a dwarf form of T. streptophylla.
T. diguetii is a stemless plant, only 7-8 cm high; leaves many; sheaths inflated, forming an ellipsoid pseudobulb of 2-2.5 cm in diameter; blades recurved, about 10 cm long, 1 cm wide at the base, attenuate, flat, recurved, and often contorted, densely and coarsely covered by whitish-gray, subspreading trichomes. Scape lacking; inflorescence sessile in the center of the leaf-rosette, compound, bipinnate, with about 5 spikes, densely capitate; primary bracts subfoliate, much exceeding the spikes, but exposing them because of the reflexed blades. The spikes are strict, sessile, elliptic-acute, 3 cm long, 1 cm wide, densely 2-3 flowered; floral bracts about 2 cm long, exceeding the sepals, imbricate, carinate, slightly incurved towards the apex, lepidote; sepals obtuse, coriaceous, membranaceous at the apex, lepidote; the posterior ones carinate and connate for 3-4 mm; petals 22-25 mm long, blue-violet.
The plant is cultivated in the Heidelberg Botanical Garden under the number B G H 55202. The plant must be determined with the help of Subkey VII in the "Tillandsioideae" by L. B. Smith in Flora Neotropica, Nr. 14, part 2. —SeeRauh 1982cp. 95
