Tillandsia huajuapanensis Ehlers & Lautner
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- Notes
During a journey to Mexico in March 1990 Jurgen Lautner, from the Botanical Garden Gottingen, discovered a new Tillandsia. On his return to Germany he sent photos of many flowering saxicolous funnel-shaped tillandsias to me for identification. They were characterised by hanging, bright red inflorescences. When 1 saw these pictures I became very excited, because I had never seen such a Tillandsia before. According to Jiirgen Lautner, these plants were found close to the village of Tutla, not far from the road on a steep rocky wall.
In March 1991, Klaus and I returned to Mexico. In the town of Huajuapan de Leon we stayed overnight in a lovely Arabic-style hotel and the following morning we made an early start to find the locality in nearby Tutla described by Jurgen. Although we drove carefully we could see no sign of a Tillandsia-covered rock face along the road. In Tutla we began to retrace our steps and, by using our binoculars, we surveyed every exposed rock in that region. Ignoring the terrific temperatures we climbed some of the small canons and hills in order to get a better view of the surrounding area. However, we only saw bare or sparsely covered rocks, baked in the sun which were much too dry and hot to support a green Tillandsia. As evening approached, we met a shepherd with a large flock of goats. It's always lucky to meet a shepherd if one needs advice regarding the flora of the region because they usually know their home patch very well and can often give advice about the plants in their surroundings, even down to the colour of the flowers. But, our shepherd could not help us. He said that it is much too dry for the type of plant that we were looking for. Tired and bathed in sweat we headed back to our hotel. We grumbled out loud about our friend Jurgen, because we were disappointed not to find the plants. As we approached Huajuapan, to our surprise, we spotted the long sought-after plants on a rock-face bathing in the last sunlight of the day! But it was now much too late to start climbing the moun tain. The following morning (18.3.1991), we returned to the area, but not a single flowering plant could be seen!
In the spring of 1992, Jurgen Lautner returned to Tutla but he too couldn't find any flowering plants. On 8.3.1993, Klaus and I were again visiting the locality, and luckily, this time we found a large number of flowering plants. It appears that the plants synchronise flowering to coincide with every third year although the exact rhythm and conditions necessary for the plants to flower is subject to further research. Interestingly, this phenomenon is not unknown in Bromeliaceae. Even under cultivation conditions plants of a certain species, with no regard to the collection locality or date, start to bloom at the same time. In November 2005 three large Tillandsia prodigiosa, which had been collected in different states of Mexico in different years and have been in my own collection for many years, started to flower in synchrony. In my collection, all ten shoots of T. nuptialis that originated from a collection in Brazil and are now arranged together on a piece of wood, flowered 14 years ago with every single plant exhibiting an inflorescence. Since then, despite their good health and maturity, not a single one has flowered for me. I am waiting to take a clearer photo to replace the old one.
The new species from Huajuapan is extremely slow growing and it seems to be difficult to bring it into flower. In 1991 we collected some large, nearly mature specimens but only one single plant flowered in April 1994. Since then I have been waiting for the next plant to develop an inflorescence. Although they have a lot of adventitious shoots and all appear healthy, no inflorescence appears.
Jurgen and Uli Lautner, Manfred Kretz and I have been to the locality two times since. In March 2003 we again didn't find any flowering plants. The specimen of a postfloral plant, collected on 1.3.2005 at the same locality appeared to be doubtful. This specimen is filed in WU but excluded here. A specimen from a sterile living collection from 2005 came into flower in 2007 in the Botanical Garden in Gottingen, Germany, and serves as a paratype, now stored in WU.
Although there is little material known of this new species, it undoubtedly belongs to none of the species yet described. Originally, it was named "T. tutlaensis" (ined.), but we have now decided to name it after the town of Huajuapan de Leon, which is closer to the type-locality.
Now that my plants have their own name on their label, I am hoping that at least one of them will be persuaded to produce an inflorescence after the many long years of nurturing in my collection.
Mexico, Estado Oaxaca, near Huajuapan de Leon in 1800 m elev., on steep rock faces. At the type-locality the following epiphytic bromeliads were found: Tillandsia atroviridipetala Matuda, T. achyrostachys E. Morren, T. circinnatoides Matuda, T. fasciculata Sw., T. makoyana Baker. It is a very hot and dry area. —See Die Bromelie
