Butchers Comment
This plant was imported from the USA as Pitcairnia vargasiana by Peter Tristram in the 1980's and an offset found its way to South Australia in 1989. I came into the picture in the mid 1990's and suggested the plant was wrongly named. I even took it to pieces in my search! In 1996 I took a photograph with me to the Orlando Conference and spoke to Harry Luther about my problem. Harry agreed it was not P. vargasiana but because I spoke to him at the Conference and not when he was home at Selby Gardens he was unable to advise further.
In June 1999 I again saw this plant in flower and was allowed to take it home for "homework".
Using the key in Smith and Downs I kept stumbling across Pitcairnia inermis but the sepals were pointed to my mind but the description said obtuse! That was until I saw the line drawing of the sepal and it was the same shape as mine! Secondly I was worried about the petals which were yellow not red and there was no appendage at the base. What was a surprise was the fact that these two criteria were how Lyman Smith differentiated between the type species and the variety flava. It was a surprise because on the one hand we had Lyman Smith splitting two genera, namely Tillandsia and Vriesea on petal appendages and here he was not splitting at species level! You are never too old to learn.
Everything clicked from then on so I'm quite sure that the plant should have been identified as P. inermis var. flava. It comes from 2000 m altitude in Central Peru and shares a similar habitat to the less-well documented P. vargasiana.
