History:
When I travelled with Klaus more than 20 years ago in Chiapas we already took photos of this plant. But as it was so big and we thought it is T. dasyliriifolia. So we never collected any plant for our collection at home. Also from other friends like the Brinkmann's from Berlin we got photos.
But in November 2001 I travelled with Lydia and Gerhard Köhres through Chiapas and as I was interested in the meantime to get as much knowledge as possible about the T. limbata- T. dasyliriifolia family I took 2 big plants to Germany. I became very excited when the plant was flowering because it did not fit neither of the plants I thought it is related to. On my trip with Jürgen and Uli Lautner and Manfred Kretz in February 2003 I recollected the Tillandsia. In our discussions Robert and Victoria Guess thought that this plant is T. dasyliriifolia. But I found too many different characters also to this species and as well to T. limbata and T. makoyana, so I described it and named it Tillandsia comitanensis. The name refers to Comitan, the place where we found the plant for the first time.
This Tillandsia is widely spread through the highland of Chiapas but it always grows in the higher elevations:.
Estado Chiapas, Lagunas Montebello, April 1982, photo K. Ehlers; Estado Chiapas, Lagunas Montebello, photo. J. Brinkmann 8/28, 1993, Las Margaritas photo R. Ehlers s. n. Nov. 2001.
Robert and Victoria Guess found it around Aguacatenango, Amatenango, Teopisca, Lagos de Montebello and Las Margaritas. They also have seen it in the Central Depression, but not in the same numbers. And they said that hundreds of these plants come into San Cristóbal at Christmas time.
The plant is monocarpic. —SeeJ. Bromeliad Soc.
