Tillandsia fuchsii W.Till
Literature references:
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Comments:
- See also J. Brom. Soc. 42: 99-102. 1992
One of the most beautiful, small tillandsias, much desired by growers, is generally known as Tillandsia argentea. The plants have a bulbous habit because of the succulent leaf bases. The leaves are slender, more or less cylindrical, and tapering to a fine, sharp point (subulate). They are densely covered with a grey, frostlike bloom. The lax, simple inflorescences are coral-colored and bear 5-10 flowers with radially symmetrical violet corollas. They are found on the western side of the Sierra Madre in Mexico and southward as far as Guatemala
If one reads the different descriptions, red and violet can be found as the color of the petals, but nobody investigated this discrepancy. In addition, the other characters derive from two different taxa and, as a result, all descriptions are a mixture.
Grisebach founded his Tillandsia argentea on fruiting material from southeastern Cuba collected by C. Wright in 1859. The type specimen is deposited in the herbarium of the University of Gottingen, Germany. An additional specimen is kept in the herbarium of the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, Austria, and probably also represents a type. Both specimens strongly resemble the habit of the plants collected in Mexico and Guatemala but they do not form bulbs since their leaf sheaths are not succulent. Plants of this kind are found only in Cuba and Jamaica.
In the last few years, living material has been imported by various Austrian and Czechoslovakian collectors from Cuba when that country increased its efforts to attract tourists. The vegetative plants attracted my attention and when they flowered in the greenhouse of the University of Vienna garden it was clear that they were different from the Mexican and Guatemalan plants. A comparison with the type specimen from Gottingen revealed that the living samples were completely identical with Wright's collection of nearly 130 years earlier.
As there are no synonyms under Tillandsia argentea, the mainland plants had to be described as new. I named them in honor of Franz Fuchs, the chief gardener of the Botanical Garden at Linz, Austria, for his merits in cultivating tillandsias and other bromeliads.
Since the plant in question is well known by most growers, it is not necessary to give an extensive description here, but it is introduced by the accompanying illustrations.
Typical plants (fig. 1) are found in the southeast of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, between the cities of Oaxaca and Tehuantepec at an elevation of about 1300 meters above sea level. They represent the coarse-leafed form .Plants from the Mexican states of Michocan and Guerrero obviously belong also to the typical form.
In the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico and in Guatemala, Tillandsia fuchsii tends to have thinner and more slender leaves. I have described it as forma gracilis.
More striking and interesting is a population from the western part of the state of Jalisco, Mexico, which I have named in honor of the collector, Stefan Schatzl, senior gardener of the Botanical Garden at Linz, as Tillandsia fuchsii variety stephani (fig. 3). It differs from the typical variety by its wine-red to maroon inflorescences, the longer internodes of the rachis, the acute floral bracts and sepals, and the violet stigmas. That variety settles at the northwestern end of the distribution of T. fuchsii.
It should be noted that Tillandsia fuchsii is endangered since it is over-collected for commercial purposes. Thousands of plants are ruined each year in florist shops where they are stuck on pieces of wood or stone. They are completely unadaptable to the average apartment climate. Trade in this species should be limited exclusively to material grown from seed by horticulturists.
Table I. Comparison of the diagnostic characteristics
Tillandsia argentea Tillandsia fuchii
short-caulescent stemless
leaf sheaths not succulent, castaneous, leaf sheaths succulent, light green, leaf
leaf blades involute at upper surface blades not involute but angled and succulent at base.
inflorescence 4 (-6) flowered Inflorescence 5 - 10 (-14) flowered
floral bracts oblong-orbicular, floral bracts ovate to oval,
5.5-6.7 x 5.5-6.2 mm, laxly lepidote 7.5 - 10.5 x 6 - 7.1mm, outside normally
outside, with narrow hyaline margins glabrous, with broad hyaline margins
corolla zygomorphic corolla actinomorphic
sepals broadly ovate-elliptic, sepals narrowly elliptic
12-13.5 (-16) x 6-7.1 mm 13.3 16 x 4.9 - 5.9mm
petals crimson, narrowly lanceolate, not petals violet, lingulate, somewhat
constricted above base and unlobed, not constricted above base and with
hood-shaped at apex, 27-27.5 x 5.1 mm lateral lobes, distinctly hood-shaped at apex, 22 - 24.5 x 7mm.
filaments crimson like the petals filaments chartreuse
style light crimson; stigma at same style chartreuse; stigma mostly
height as the anthers exceeding the longer stamens
Cuba, Jamaica distribution: Mexico, Guatemala —See Die Bromelie
