Past experiences
In March 1991 Klaus and I were in the state Oaxaca on a Tillandsia hunt. On15th March we came to the area near Copala where there are very many different tillandsias and where we had already discovered Tillandsia copalaensis in 1981.
The climate for the area had changed dramatically in the past 10 years, as it seems to have done in many other areas in Oaxaca: it has become essentially drier. Where we used to find, for example, T. plumosa, T. magnusiana and T. matudae, they are now missing.
It was already late afternoon. Suddenly, we saw a fascinating Tillandsia with a gigantic, scarlet inflorescence in a tree. Unfortunately it was on the tree so high and solidly attached we could not remove it. We drove on to Tlaxiaco to sleep for the night. All evening we thought about this red beauty again and again. We just had to drive back to Copala on the following day to try to capture the red Tillandsia afterall. Again, we tried with our poles, but it was useless. I decided to climb the tree. Although 15 years ago I was more athletic than I am today, I was never any good at mountaineering! But the plant was so beautiful and I had never seen anything like it, so we just had to get it! Klaus helped me to ascend the trunk from below and then I climbed further up and carefully approached the large plant, that was attached rather strongly to the tree. Safely on the ground, I was full of joy when I photographed Klaus with the flowering plant. In the evening, I studied the inflorescence and the individual floral characteristics very carefully. On arriving home I wrote up a description and sent it to Dr. Walter Till, in Vienna who kindly did the differential diagnosis in Latin.
The plant differed from all tillandsias that I knew from Mexico , and the closest in similarity was T. calothyrsus, which is wide-spread in Southern Mexico. But there were so many different characteristics that justified it being described as a species in its own right.. The very long spikes and the small petals with enclosed stamens, are characteristics not expected for Mexican tillandsias.
On later trips, we tried to find this beautiful Tillandsia again, but it seems to occur only in this very isolated and we could not find just one specimen.
Therefore I came to the opinion that it was probably not a true species but that it must probably be a natural hybrid. This opinion was also supported by the strange stamens, enclosed in the petal tube which made me wonder what sub-genus of Tillandsia it could be. So, I left the description for 15 years in a drawer, because I didn't want to publish a description for a plant that had no natural range or was a hybrid.
However in the February 2005, with my friends Jürgen and Ulrich Lautner and Manfred Kretz, I found the plant at another location: on the route from Laguna San Andres to Chicahuaxtla, 2150 m s.m. There, we could see many plants. It seems that the original habitat lies in this area, and that only some seeds were dispersed at Carrizal some 10 km away.
It was already late afternoon of the 28th February on our way to Juxtlahuaca where we were intending to sleep when Uli suddenly called, "STOP! I've seen something interesting!" We all got out, and next to the road on a tall tree grew a big red - blooming Tillandsia with immensely long, narrow spikes. Manfred succeeded in collecting it with his long poles. I was over joyed: it was the beautiful plant from Carrizal! Unfortunately, my Nikon camera had been broken for a few days and the memory-chips of my Digital camera were already full! But my friends photographed it at the roadside and the gigantic inflorescence and a few leaves were packed for my herbarium. I really wanted a living plant for my collection! I just wanted to experience its flowering completely on my own. This seemed an impossible task. On one side of the road it went steeply down hill with trees on the edge and on the other side was a very steep high embankment. But Manfred saw how important it was for me to get such a plant, he climbed up and with his long poles, collected a beautiful plant with many basal adventitious offsets for me. I hope that I will still experience it flowering in my collection.
Now we have rediscovered this plant and found that it occurs over a wide area it should be published as a new species. It gets its name from the place of discovery - Laguna.
At the type locality near Carrizal, it grows in a very isolated area in association with T. fasciculata Swartz, T. butzii Mez, T. bourgaei Baker, T. juncea Ruiz & Pavon, T. makoyana Baker, T. copalaensis Ehlers, T. kolbii Till & Schatzl, and many orchids.
In February 2005 on the route from Laguna San Andres towards Chicahuaxtla, 2150 m s.m. we could see many of these plants. It therefore seems that this is the main area where they are found. No other tillandsias grew in this area other than a solitary T. copalaensis Ehlers.. —SeeDie Bromelie
