Deuterocohnia brevispicata by D Butcher Oct 2006
It all started when Lieselotte Hromadnik and her husband collected a plant near Chuquisaca at 1300m in Bolivia some 20 years ago. Lieselotte is known more for her Tillandsia collecting in the highlands of Bolivia and Peru but she had an interest in the pricklies too! This particular specimen was grown on at the Heidelberg Botanic Garden in Germany under the watchful eye of Werner Rauh. It flowered in captivity and was named Deuterocohnia brevispicata by Lieselotte and Werner jointly in 1988 in what is lovingly called Trop. Subtrop. Pflanz. I duly translated the description from German to English for my own records and there it stayed, just in case it may come in useful in the future.
In 2002, on one of the many trips that Len Colgan from Adelaide made to Germany to visit Renate Ehlers to increase his Tillandsia collection, he was able to visit Heidelberg Botanic Gardens and even acquired rare Tillandsia from there too. He must have really impressed them because shortly after he was sent seed which had previously been stored in a frozen state to increase their longevity of viability. One of the batches was called Deuterocohnia brevispicata. We don't know much about freezing seed although we do know that in this case Timm Stolten had frozen the seed as an experiment in a regular freezer at -18C for nearly two years before sending some to Len. Non-frozen seed from this species are viable after 12 months so we did not learn much! However, we do know that the seed came from the type specimen where the same flower spike has flowered 3 times a year regularly for the last 18 years!
On receipt of the seed out came my records so we knew what the plant should look like but I was not going to wax lyrical because it was only seed we had. As is usual with generous Len, he spread the seed around growers in Australia (and Adelaide). We had little success but there were rumours that John Catlan and Genny Vauhkonen had succeeded but were they according to the name on the packet? We are growing seedlings from John but they are exceedingly slow. I had heard rumours that one of these plants was producing a long long flower spike and no sign of it flowering. So it was great to get photos in the Sept/Oct 2006 issue of Bromlink - The Goldcoast Group Newsletter - of the plant in flower.
I contacted the owner of the plant, Lyn Hall who supplied me with coloured photos. So here is the next part of the story. John Catlan got the seed in 2002 and, Ian and Lyn bought a small seedling in Oct 2004 because they wanted something different for their cactus and succulent rockery. Less than 2 years later it was in flower. We know that in every seed batch there are always one or two plants that grow much faster than the rest - was this one of them? Or is it just the fabled Queensland weather plus fertiliser? Lyn tells me no fertiliser and sandy soil so the only other option is that the plant likes free root room. Outside plantings are great but you must have plans to weed from time to time! Anyway, Lyn did not expect such a flowering phenomenon. Remember that the description said flowering to 1.2m and here the inflorescence was up to 2m long and bending towards the ground. With the aid of ropes and a nearby tree the flower stem was kept fairly erect. The flowering habit is odd to say the least although the name 'brevispicata' gives a hint but 'strobilata' may have been more descriptive. Brevispicate means short spike which does not refer to the generally-called flower spike but to the short side branches. Strobilate means like a pine-cone and here you have a scape some 50cm long emerging before the first red 'pinecone' appears and every 10cm or so a new red 'pinecone' stretching to over 2metres if you live on the Gold Coast.
Eventually from these 2.5 cm diam 'pinecones' flowers emerge where the petals form a bicoloured tube which is predominantly red but with a clear bright green tip. A colour combination only nature could think up!
Please remember not to remove the flower head because it will just flower again, again and again. The Germans want to know what magical climate you have on the Gold Coast because it takes them 10 years from seed to flowering. I have told them the secret is 'hot air' caused by bragging!!
I am told that John and Genny at Jacob's Well have 'hundreds' of these plants if you are interested in something different by way of pricklies. But remember if you do come from down south in Australia you will have to wait a bit longer for flowering.
Deuterocohnia brevispicata by Timm Stolten in Die Brom 2: 44-7. 1999
Mentioning the name Deuterocohnia mostly only a shrug from Bromeliad growers. The name Abromeitiella however is already familiar. Many know this genus with its four terrestrial, cushion-forming species from cactus growing or Botanical Gardens. Although HORRES has already reported in 1997 that Abromeitiella was put in 1992 under Deuterocohnia ( SPENCER & SMITH) this fact has hardly been spoken about until now. The reason for this is now explained.
The genus Deuterocohnia Mez came into being on 1st February 1894, published in Martius, Flora Brasiliensis. The type is based on Dyckia longipetala Baker 1889, now Deuterocohnia longipetala (Baker) Mez 1894. The generic name honors the German botanist and Bacteriologist, Ferdinand Julius Cohn (1828-1898). Cohn worked as professor and director of the botanical garden in Breslau and was Overseer of micro-biology. He created everyday names such as Bacillus and Bacterium ( Herder 1994). Since there was already a Genus named Cohnia, the prefix deuterios ( second) was added in front in the formation of a new generic word.
As with most of the xerophytic bromeliads the genus is in the subfamily Pitcairnioideae. With the 13 species, that are in the revision ( Spencer & Smith1992) we can add the species D. recurvifolia Gross 1991 and 2 varieties, and is still under review. Its range stretches from the cold desert areas, in upper North-Argentina, South Bolivia, west Brazil to North Peru.
The botanical garden Heidelberg is in the fortunate position to cultivate nearly all species in its collection ( besides 5, 7, 12, 12a, 13 in Tab. 1). We have the lions' share thanks to Mrs Hromadnik. These 14 species will soon be increased because we know of two specimens that seem new and will be described as new species ( Gross, 1998, pers. comm.).
For me the most interesting species is as follows.
Deuterocohnia brevispicata
On 22. July 1995 the Heidelberg Botanical Garden had a heavy hailstorm. over 800 mē of glass was broken, or about one third of the total area. Shards fell like guillotines from the roof and damaged an immense number of plants.
Also two single, large specimens of D. brevispicata were victims. A sorry sight!
I had only recently taken over the "xerophytic bromeliad" section, and I had not noticed these two plants there. Large, unwieldy, spiky, a big, dry inflorescence... there, one looks rather like a beautiful flowering Dyckia.
Most plants recovered slowly however continually, only "the two" stopped dead, their stigmas like fundamental medals. The big cleaning out began. I wanted to remove the dried leaves and was attracted to new buds that had formed on the inflorescence.
Mrs. Dr. Gross clarified my good fortune because this is exactly the peculiarity with these plants and on no account should I cut them off. My interest was awakened, and I began to be more skillful.
A a few bromeliads over many years and from the same inflorescence continue to flower, see Foster (1945). He discovered a cambium-like layer, that produces year after year new flowers with Deuterocohnia meziana. This was held to be the only case in bromeliads (Smith, 1964), until Benzing (1980) reported the same phenomenon in some species of the genus Hohenbergia, subfamily Bromelioideae. My observations show at least D. meziana, brevispicata, glandulosa, longipetala and recurvipetala show this phenomenon; very likely also D. haumanii, D. schreiteri and D. chrysantha.
The two D. brevispicata have been approximately 10 years in the garden. It is the type specimen, Rauh No. 50836, this type, according to my knowledge is the only one in cultivation until now. They became from the Mr. & Mrs. Hromradnik,( leg. No. HR 5213) found in Bolivia, Dept. Chucquisaca, above Muyupampa, terrestrially near Inca Huasi (close to 1300 m N.N.) and from these Rauh in 1988 named and described them as a new species. It is suspected that it has flowered from the same inflorescence from this time, at least for 6 years. Flowering always occurs for some weeks in batches for the whole year through. After appearing dead for about two months a new sprout appears. With time, large clumps of old flowers are on the inflorescence rhachis.
Now in the last year, I wanted to remove all the dry flowers carefully to leave more place for new sprouts. Once there I actually noticed in the chaos a few seed pods! Very small ( about 8-10 mm) and from the dry flower husk contents, that had slightly twisted post floral. As a result, I have received normal pollination on both plants and a few seeds. The seeds are, as with most Pitcairnioideae, very small and short winged on the sides. They vary strongly in their form. After I had collected several seedpods, I germinated them relatively easily, and so I have today as well as "the two" 60 young plants.
Culture:
Temperature:
Fundamentally cultivation of Deuterocohnia is unproblematic. All species grow terrestrially or on rock. In principle, they should be treated like cactus. As long as they get enough sun they are very patient. With dry cultural conditions they tolerate rather low temperatures and in winter. D. brevispicata is grown by us in a greenhouse only 6-8° C over winter, until recently now in the plant house at 12-15° C.
Soil mix:
Also with soil mix they are not very fussy. A mixture from even parts lava ( grains 5-10 mm, sieved) granite grit (eroded granite), sand and Coco peat ( peat-substitute-material from coconut-fibers) without additional fertilizer and therefore similar to the usual cactus and succulent mix. In order to avoid damping off we prefer Tontopfe. With young plants also, a top covering of sand is quite helpful. A large pot should be selected so that as much as possible one doesn't have to re-pot every year.
With forethought ( but who already has that... ), Deuterocohnia do need to be transplanted. One hardly needs to say that every year comes around soon enough
With repotting, if needs must, go carefully! The plants have very brittle leaves. Through touching, a part of the epidermis can die and its scar remains, which can still be seen a year later. Deuterocohnia are elephants in the sense that they don't easily forget.
Water:
Care should be taken in watering. Generally they manage on little water. It should at the best be only directed on to the substratum. It is necessary to avoid watering over the leaves, at least in winter.
Fertilising:
Fertilize only rarely. Between March and October every 3-4 weeks with usually, liquid complete fertilizer, like Wuxal super, 8-8-6.
Stock increase:
You can confidently forget vegetative increase with D. brevispicata. They have grown well for 20 years but only rarely an offshoot. Sowing seed has already been mentioned. I believe that most success with pollination occurs when flowering occurs in the morning of a warm sunny day. Fruit maturity occurs in about two months. The fruit are difficult to find and, only through regular checks.
We store the seeds in the freezer near - 22° C. Germination tests after more than one year were positive. I believe that they can be stored for longer periods.
With sowing in March to April, they germinate uninterrupted ( after about 8 weeks) and in nearly a year grow to 8 cm diameter.
All Deuterocohnia are worthy of cultivation, and not just because of their morphological peculiarities their distribution in collections is really a desirable object. —SeeRauh 1973-1991
