Neoregelia richteri Weber by Butcher in Bromeliaceae ( Qld Journal) March 2000 p9-10
The discussion on this plant started in Bromeletter #5 1996 page 5 where I asked readers to be on the look out for this plant. while I got no feed-back I now have further information which I find intriguing.
In the late 1980’s there was a plant being grown in Australia as Neoregelia ‘Walter Richter’ which was a strappy leaved plant and I did not take much notice of it. Nor had many others because I have only been able to trace a live specimen in one old collection here in Adelaide.
In 1983 it was being grown at the Adelaide Botanical Gardens having been sent to them by the Mount Cootha Botanic Garden in Brisbane in January of that year.
In the 1990’s I started searching for Neoregelia species growing in Australia and Harry Luther was a great help in supplying me with copies of plant descriptions, be they in English, German, or Portuguese! I even made myself a key to help me narrow down my search because there were many imposters and hybrids around. One of these imposters which I thought was from a reliable source had Neoregelia binotii on the label but this kept keying out to Neoregelia richteri. I had taken the various parts of the inflorescence to pieces and I compared them with the description that I had now translated from the Latin and German. There was one odd factor not mentioned in the description which revolved around how the filaments were joined along their length (adnate) in two series. One set was wholly joined whereas the other was only joined for just over half the length.
What I found really intriguing was that this plant was compared to Neoregelia spectabilis by Weber where he found three significant differences. If he had compared it with Neoregelia cruenta he would have found very few differences. I found only 3 minor ones.
cruenta richteri
Leaf blades 7 - 9 cm wide 5 cm wide
Scape bracts entire spiny edges
Inflorescence ? 3.5 cm diameter
My plant had spiny edges on the lower bracts but entire on the upper ones!
In 1993 at the Australian Bromeliad Conference in Queensland, Elton Leme showed slides of Neoregelia cruenta where there was great variation which had me thinking about Neoregelia richteri.
In May 1997 I was asked to identify a plant in the Townsville Botanic Gardens and felt sure it was Neoregelia cruenta. Luckily, I was able to obtain an offset and it is identical to the plant I had which had erroneously been named as Neoregelia binotii. Further investigation into this has revealed that the erroneously named N. binotii came in as seed from Richard Doering of Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1957 to Bill Morris , then of Warners Bay, NSW It is shown in the letter as “ Neoregelia sp. #2 - light green leaves with beautiful red ‘finger nails’ at the end” Also in the letter was this comment ”I have many plants which right names I could not find out. I have sent samples to specialists , photos to Mr. Foster (no answer), color slides to Germany (answer maybe) and so on. Mr. L. Smith’s latest book doesn’t help, because it is purely botanical, explaining the differences by infinitesimal particularities of the flower. It is really disheartening”
Using Smith’s recently published Bromeliaceae of Brazil Smithsonian, Misc. Coll. 126:1 - 290 (1955) Bill got close to N. binotii remembering that red tips to the leaves could easily become dark green in a dried condition. The yellowish wide-leaved N. cruenta was known in Australia as was N. spectabilis but this plant was different And this name stuck throughout the years until I started asking questions in the 1990’s
The year 2000 saw me contacting Doug Upton in Brisbane to follow up the lead at Mount Cootha Botanic Garden because he knows the curator, Ross Mc Kinnon quite well. Alas, there are no records of a Neoregelia ‘Walter Richter’ ever having been at Mount Cootha and we can only rely on the Adelaide Botanical Garden records.
Neoregelia richteri was named in 1982 and it is feasible that the plant was in Mount Cootha Botanic Gardens before that time as ‘Walter Richter’ pending its formal description. Remember, too that Dr Richard Oeser had close ties with Walter Richter as well as having correspondents in Australia.
Checks have been made at the Townsville Botanic Gardens but no name of “Walter Richter’ can be traced so any link with the Mount Cootha plant would be very tenuous.
Where does all this get us? Nowhere, really but I would just love some Queenslander to be wandering around Mount Cootha Botanic Gardens and see a narrow green-leaved plant, unnamed or with Neoregelia cruenta on the label, AND tell the Curator that the lost had been found!
In hindsight there is another plant with a chequered career that could easily be linked with Neoregelia richteri and I refer to what is now known as Neoregelia cruenta ‘Red Form’. This is narrow leaved too and started off being grown as ‘Monstrosus’ and even had a short spell being identified as N. hatschbachii until it was finally decided it was within the variable N. cruenta. —SeeWeber 1984b
