Racinaea tillii Manzan. & Gouda
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- Comment:—In November 2005 we visited the area around Baeza searching for species of Racinaea. We chose the road from Papallacta to Baeza, which parallels the river Quijos. The area near the river was deforested and turned into pastures. There was very little native flora near the road, but you could see native forest on top of the mountains in the distance. The small trees planted as a hedge around the pastures were completely covered in bromeliads. Here we observed Guzmania multiflora André (the inflorescence had red primary and floral bracts with yellow sepals, or, with an inflorescence totally yellow), Racinaea tetrantha (Ruiz & Pav.) M.A.Spencer & L.B.Sm., Tillandsia biflora Ruiz & Pav., T. complanata Benth., T. hirtzii Rauh, T. ionochroma André ex Mez, T. pastensis André (with a spectacular red inflorescence), and Vriesea tequendamae André, just to give an indication on the diversity of Bromeliaceae found in this small area. We spent hours scanning the trees from top to bottom and we were really surprised at the diversity of bromeliads growing here, which at a first glance all looked not very diverse at all. Racinaea tillii is very similar to R. penlandii, especially in habit and leaf shape. The plant forms an ovate pseudobulb with green leaves, spotted with round purple spots, like those on R. penlandii, but by studying them both more carefully, the specimen proved to be an species new to science and is therefore presented here.
in trees bordering a pasture, this area belongs to the cloudy and cool mountain forest on the Amazonian side of the Andes, close to the city of Cuyuja, Napo province, Ecuador, 2461 m. —See Manzanares & Gouda 2010