July/August 2005 :Bromeliad Gazette. Vol:29. Number:04

May Meeting from the Secretary’s desk
The main talk was on growing the fluffy seed and given by Derek and Len. First, it was pointed out that previous meeting on seed from Pitcairnioideae and Bromelioideae had been the easy one. Things were going to be tougher. Just to show how easy it was from last meeting David Wecker brought in a chinese take-away clear plastic container complete with germinated Dyckia platyphylla on commercial cactus soil mix. Bill Treloar also reported good results.
Good fast results from this meeting are less assured. BUT we must all be optimists. First, members were asked who had brought in seedling Guzmania, Catopsis, Werauhia, Glomeropitcairnia, Alcantarea, Mezobromelia, Racinaea, or even Vriesea and the silence was deafening.
Under Adelaide conditions without the help of bottom heat and rain water growing these genera from seed is a challenge to say the least. Derek brought in a couple of Vriesea seedlings to show how well he succeeds!!!? It is interesting to note what Olwen Ferris used to write about so many years ago about the special technique needed to grow Vriesea from seed when in Sydney. Problems seemed less when she moved to Queensland.
Now I have touched on ‘the others’ we can now talk entirely about the grey leaved tillandsias! Olwen used to sell Tillandsia seedlings when they were probably of a size when they should not have left mother but I remember Alf Cowan buying a few. He had them for years and years and they never grew and I kept on telling him to really water them. Water did not harm them as long they got dry before the next watering. I think when Alf died the plants were still the same size!
So you must have time on your side if you want to grow tillandsias from seed.
First we looked at the group of tillandsias everyone should try because they are the hardiest and fastest. This is the Diaphoranthema group that includes T. usneoides, T. recurvata, T. myosurus etc. Seed capture is a tricky business because Tillandsia seed has a short viability period and they are fluffy seed – like a dandelion – that blows around. While you can put an onion bag over the inflorescence you only have to forget it and the seed is too old. If you are really clever you can guess when the seed may be ripe and open the capsule prematurely! All you do is lightly bend the pod until it breaks in the centre and you carefully extract the seed. This is similar to getting meat out of crab legs! One end of the strand is thicker than the other and this is where the plant should grow from. You place these on a piece of cork and a spray of water will attach it to this substrate. After adding a label with name and date this can be hung up in a shady area. This substrate can be anything. There are the famous Oeser’s bundles of twigs and we must not forget the Paroz biscuits which are a sandwich of coconut fibre and foam plastic.

If you grow tillandsias and do not behead the flowers you can sometimes have surprises where seed has been produced and there has been sufficient moisture around to germinate the seed. This can occur on the shadecloth, on the plants themselves, on the mountings, or other bits of wood. The problem here is that you do not know if the seed just blew in. If you grow on these plants you will probably have to wait until flowering before identifying them! There is a great chance they are members of the Diaphoranthema group mentioned before. There were seedlings on a dead flowerhead of a T. bergeri and there was also the remains of a seed capsule suggesting that it was seed from T. bergeri. Here another factor comes into play. Recently it was being discussed on the Internet as to why you never saw seed pods on T. bergeri and the consensus was that T. bergeri is self sterile. So Dave Wecker has a long wait to find out if it was selfing or foreign pollen that did the trick. Here the problem is time because not only are you apt to forget what happened over the years but plastic labels don’t last forever and neither does the writing!

We haven’t been growing Bromeliads long enough to know if they have a life span. Plants in the wild are constantly renewing themselves via seed. In captivity you mainly rely on offsets and in the past if a plant died it was replaced with stock from habitat. The way natural habitat is disappearing these days, it will get harder and harder to replenish your stocks. So seed raising is encouraged and herein lies the crunch. It is the easiest thing in the world to get hybrid seed – just look at the number of hybrids around. It is much much harder to get species seed. Just ask the Cryptanthus Society, a specialist group who extols the hybrid and assumes that species will always be found in the wild.
On this theme if and when species come into your possession we should be encouraging the growing on of any seed even if it takes years or there may be unintentional hybridising. As an example of this when I received a Tillandsia gerdae from Lieselotte Hromradnik in 1995 it had a seed pod and I dutifully sowed the seed. I handed out a couple of mounted plants admittedly only 2cm high but in the hope that the recipients in a few years time can boast they have flowered them and YES they are T. gerdae. On a similar note in 1999 Renate Ehlers found seed on her collected T. erici which she sent to Australia. It is a great orange-flowered plant. Len Colgan may have a grown this plant but Adam and I have many seedlings which we cherish. Just over 5 years old but showing great promise at 1.5 cm long!

So patience is a virtue. Things can be sped up a bit as was shown with T. utriculata var. utriculata seedlings that had been glued on to the intersections of 5cm diam plastic mesh. This can then be hung next to your T. usneoides clumps to give more humidity. This is what Rolly Reilly used to do even in Queensland! .

Len then explained his method which is not popular amongst Tillandsia specialists throughout Australasia but does work even if slow. He throws the seed on the shadecloth next to the adult plant – he doesn’t move his plants around! And waters them so they stick. When he waters his plants his seedlings get watered too! He tries to pollinate his rare species by using a fine paint brush and sometimes succeeds so he has several patches of seedlings around his shadehouses. After about 5 years they are big enough to be wriggled off the shadecloth – a challenging occupation – and glued on to some spare piece of wood. We were able to see some of Len’s handywork realising that they were only halfway through in their hope for adulthood!

Slow but sure. Many times in the past I have heard growers boasting of their prowess in growing tillandsias from seed. It is so easy to get them to the little green globule stage which can take up to 12 months when it is thought that increase in watering will increase growth. Lots stop boasting at this time! Len was able to show this when he used coconut husks as recommended by specialist Tillandsia growers. The plants did not dry out fast enough and just died so he is dead set on his shadecloth technique. He was not prepared to cut holes in his shadehouses just to bring in plants to show. However he did seem inclined to want to attach his shadecloth on to frames and perhaps this may be a retirement pastime for him next year. He has at least 20 years in him after retirement!

Just one word about another problem of growing tillandsias from seed. Should you sell them as seedlings with the name on the packet? In any event my motto is ‘Never trust the name on a label – it is just a starting point!’ and others should heed this advice. In 1991 I obtained seed from Karel Knize in Peru called ‘San Marcos’ and others called T. micans. After ten years these plants were getting large and I was running out of space so some got sold. After 13 years they started to flower and all appear to be forms of the very variable Tillandsia latifolia. All seem to have an extra long scape.

And so to the plants on display. We all like the challenges of growing plants that others say will die and should be treated as Annuals and Adam is no exception. In the Platyaechmea sub genus of Aechmea we have the common Aechmea fasciata which comes from Rio de Janeiro or thereabouts. In the same group with similar shaped inflorescences are Aechmea chantinii and its close relatives from the Amazonian jungles. Here they like to sweat it out which is something Adelaide climate doesn’t often give. Adam had brought in a flowering Aechmea manzanaresiana – a mouthful – which comes from Ecuador. He seemed to have done a great job in growing this plant to its current state. It is not a plant I would recommend but then as Len Trevor from Brisbane is oft heard to say about Adelaide moans, “If you are really keen and want to spend the money on heating, cooling, and desalinization equipment, you can grow anything in Adelaide!”

George continues to astound us from the Adelaide plains, his T. erubescens was in bud. This and like plants from the Mexican highlands just hate Adelaide summers and regularly succumb. So there are some advantages in living in the foothills.
There was some discussion as to whether David Wecker’s Vriesea sucrei needed extra fertiliser. To my mind it is one of the smaller vrieseas and big is not necessarily beautiful.
T. huarazensis was there in flower and is not common even amongst Tillandsia specialists. It has an interesting story. When Len and I were in the USA in 1996 we called into Rainforest Flora and saw several unknowns from Peru. We felt sure they were T. huarazensis but spoke in whispers because we felt the price might go up if we revealed the secret. Eventually we did get a couple of pieces and they survived quarantine. Mine took 8 years to flower but has lots of memories.
T. sphaerocephala Baker is a showy plant from Bolivia and there are 2 or 3 varieties or similar species sharing bright red bracts and red flowers. The plant on display with this name had been collected in Argentina and agrees in all respects with Tillandsia schreiteri Lillo & Castellanos with its green bracts and white flowers. The interesting thing is that Lyman Smith made them synonymous using the T. sphaerocephala name but the T. schreiteri description! Baker’s description was very vague BUT the herbarium specimens look similar. The illogicalities of Taxonomists interpretations can be frustrating at times. So despite Renate Ehlers going into print as saying they are different taxa, the records still stand that T. sphaerocephala must have white petals! What do you call a T. sphaerocephala with red petals? If it were me I would change the label to T. schreiteri.
Finally we saw more of Len’s T. fasciculata. This is a fascinating species. First we must remember that the first places that Europeans saw of the Indies according to Christopher Columbus were the islands and the first plants the Europeans saw were from the islands too. This included T. fasciculata and the first descriptions were somewhat vague but still recognisable. The mainland of Mexico then became the happy hunting grounds for botanists and T. fasciculata type plants were found there also. Were they the same? Modern botanists have scoured countries finding new species and included in this there have been slight variations within the T. fasciculata complex. Where does what fit where? In recent years the Americans have been kept away from Cuba other than their base at Guatanamo Bay! So there are novelties yet to be explained. The Europeans have had access to Cuba which is why Len has these plants he brings in from time to time. We understand that there is one taxonomist considering doing his doctorate on this species. I do know that both Renate Ehlers and myself have contacted him offering our meagre assistance and wishing him the best of luck.

June meeting from the Secretary’s desk
Plant Conservation.
Plant conservation means different things to different people. In Australia we have already reduced our forests to 5% of what they were and still they deforest in Tasmania. The same applies to the Atlantic forest in Brazil where 95% has disappeared. In Indonesia the forest is being destroyed by the size of Switzerland EVERY year because of the demand from the developed countries for timber. In fact it is happening wherever trees grow. The only thing that seems to stop this is civil war. Just after the strife in El Salvador many many Tillandsia xerographica were seen on the trees but it did not take long for the trees (and their attachments) to disappear.
This does not bode well for plants that grow on trees! Even when it is announced that National parks have been proclaimed it is but a small part and many of these are isolated so there is little chance for biodiversity and a great chance for a forest fire or insect explosion to wipe out plant species.
Realistically there seems to be little chance of growing plants in captivity and reintroducing them to the wild. There is a possibility of success in Florida where the Tillandsia population is being threatened by the dreaded weevil. If and when the weevil is eradicated, plants grown in captivity could be reintroduced to the wild but it would be a colossal job because there must be a sustainable and regenerative population for survival to occur.
Let us be more realistic. Why should we try to conserve species when there are so many hybrids around? Species have taken thousands of years to evolve. Hybrids take about 3 years or 10 years if a slow growing Tillandsia! But to keep vitality, hybrids need to be crossed back to species from time to time. But you will not be able to go back to the wild the way their homes are disappearing! So we need to set up Zoos for plants – like Botanic gardens with a difference - and promote the growing of species. I do not just mean growing offsets but growing from seed. Here lies the crunch because it is one hundred times harder to produce species than hybrids by this method!
Let us take the easy option and deal with growing offsets.
Last year there was an article by Jeffrey Kent from California in the American Bromeliad Journal, urging growers to keep species alive that he knew were fairly common in captivity but having a rough time in habitat. It does not include plants rare in cultivation and also having a tough time in the wild. Because it is hard to know what is common in captivity we should be treating species with more care than hybrids even if some are not as pretty as a new hybrid. Just think of homo sapiens if we all looked like Elle McPherson or Brad Pitt. Boring!
Using the plants on display we had a look at Jeffrey Kent’s list to see how common his suggestions are in South Australia. One aspect to consider is the true identity of the plant sold commercially compared to the plant in the wild, so this project may not be as simple as it sounds.
It did not take us long to realise that you could not take the list on face value. This is good because it makes you think about the list as not being a be-all and end-all. Just one example is the listing of Aechmea orlandiana which is available under its many Cultivar names but what about Aechmea fosteriana where perhaps even more care is needed. AND we must not forget the clouding effect of Aechmea ‘Bert’ which was created for no real reason so many years ago.
We can’t really comment on the availability of Cryptanthus or Guzmania because they do not like growing here but we would love to know how prolific some of the tillandsias listed were.
In all an interesting discussion.

It was a welcome surprise to see flowering Bromeliads at the meeting other than the usual Tillandsia! Of especial interest were 2 Guzmania hybrids that Dave Wecker had bought in the summer. They were still flowering and had very strong offsets. Us oldies were nodding (not actually shaking!) our heads but it may have been our technique so many years ago that gave us burnt fingers! David may well prove us wrong. We await seeing the growth of the offsets when taken from mother!
Vrieseas ‘Margaret B’, ‘Ingrid’ and schwackeana were vying with each other for attention. Aechmeas calyculata, capixabae, bromeliifolia, a caudata hybrid, ‘Aussie Ruby’, and ‘Fulgo-Ramosa’ were also in flower . The first named is one of those we all grew 20 years ago and can be treated as an old-and-wearied yellow flowered thing and yet there it was flowering its heart out. Talking about ‘Fulgo-Ramosa’ don’t get carried away with Queenslanders selling this as ‘Burning Bush’. Bob McGregor brought in an Aechmea ‘Lucky Stripes’ where one offset had decided to have totally pale yellow leaves instead of the green with white stripes. This is a similar happening to Billbergia ‘Gloria’ which Len Cork obtained by selecting a totally pale yellow leaved Sport until he got one fairly stable. Perhaps Bob can do the same. It is interesting with Aechmea gamosepala which we know comes in many guises, some plants large, some with longer stolons etc but all with the typical flower. When they Sport to a variegated form there seems to be an urge to give each a Cultivar name. If you have lost your label it is perhaps better to identify your plant as Aechmea gamosepala ‘Variegated’ than to try to identify it with either ‘Lucky Stripes’ or ‘Mardi Gras’.
And so to the Tillandsia stand or the perfumed garden because both T. humilis and T. straminea were there in flower. I always smile at the use of the name T. straminea. Both Lyman Smith and Werner Rauh agreed you could not tell the difference between T. straminea and T. purpurea and that all should be named T. purpurea. T. purpurea comes from the beach and gradually becomes T. straminea as the plant moves inland. The Californians will tell you they know the difference. The French will tell you they know the difference but give different reasons. This was what I was trying to explain to Andy Staelens from Sydney the other day on the phone because of a discussion at one of their meetings. I had just referred the problem to Renate who had discussed it at length at a German conference held for German Tillandsia experts. Renate’s answer was, If you found it on the beach it is T. purpurea. If not then T. straminea. If you don’t know where it was collected -----!
The same growth variations occur with T. latifolia and they are all T. latifolia!
Finally on a more cheerful note there was a hybrid between T. ionantha and T. magnusiana coming into flower. This had been created many many years ago by Pam Koide but never named. I wanted to remedy that and asked for suggested names. Len was excluded because he would have coined a new word for the dictionary like ‘Magnion’ whereas the favourite at the moment is ‘Magic Blush’.

Bromeliads and the Adelaide Botanic Garden
Wouldn’t it be great to be the Curator of a Botanic Garden? Think of all the changes you could make? Regrettably you are paid by the South Australian Government and there are certain restrictions you have to abide by! And there is the Board and the Friends of the Botanic Garden! This does not mean you do not see personal preferences creep in.
In the 1970’s Noel Lothian held the reins and he was interested in Australian native plants, but he also liked Bromeliads and Cactus. This was why we saw cactus being promoted with several glasshouses and the central planting near the large Palm house. Bromeliads were housed in the Schomburgk area as well as the terrestrials on the northern side. There were a few scattered around on trees although why the Moreton Bay figs were chosen I do not know. Ficus is not that common in the Americas!
The 1990’s saw Brian Morley in charge and he was more of a traditionalist when we saw the Palm house refurbished and the cactus garden changed to lawn. However, he was a realist in that instead of palms in the palm house we see spiny Madagascan xerophytics. We saw the Mt Lofty section really flourish in this period and much to my sorrow the large super duper Conservatory was devoted to the jungles of SE Asia which meant NO BROMELIADS!
The 2000’s saw Steve Forbes take over and he is a Pricklies man too but with even more cost restraints. Just as Morley had special Government grants for his Palmhouse so too has Steve with the refurbishment of the Schomburgk area and the OLD Herbarium. In other words Brom. country. I have seen the plans and they are impressive too. But what to do with the Bromeliads. April 2005 I was invited by John Sandham to have a wander around the gardens to see what I could suggest in making the move less traumatic. I had already pointed out that they would have trouble in re-establishing the Puyas because my experience was they did not like to be treated as cuttings or offsets. If you split them up you had to be sure some root was present to help the offset recover. I also pointed out that most Puyas are grown from seed and it may pay to keep this in mind. Some of this transferral work had been done when I made my visit and they were doing the right thing as far as I could see. The new plan envisages these pricklies to be in small plots with paths all round rather than the current mass planting. I saw this as a great improvement. We just keep our fingers crossed as to their survival.
Next was a visit to the inside plantings. ALL of the plants here are already in private collections in Adelaide where they are more likely to be properly named! To digress. It is the bane of Botanical gardens where they go to the trouble of providing the best of identification devices only for them to be moved by the public or by inexperienced ‘weeders’. We came across the same problem at the Singapore Botanic Gardens and these days I can get a photograph on the internet taken at say Kew Gardens where the plant and name do not match. I can tell you the photographer takes some convincing! AND the botanical garden involved ignores you when you point out their error! Back to the glass house. Most of the Bromeliads there do not need heat and would grow out in the cold under some sort of shade. At my diplomatic best I said they may be better putting in new stock in their new refurbished quarters. AND get new sorts of Bromeliads that needed more care and warmth, and hope they did not get pinched!
Where could they put these broms in the meantime? I thought about the fern house! I was thinking of it in its old state where the roof of brush was very thin. Alas, it has been recently re-thatched and only ferns and Nidulariums would like to be there. However, Bromeliads would probably survive there if it was understood that any straggly offsets would need to be re-acclimatised.
So, the Botanic gardens are interested in preserving their bromeliads despite their rebuilding. Let us hope they succeed but if not I am sure we can help them replace any lost. I do know that the species Vriesea that Peter Huddy donated to them were still flourishing the last time I saw them, even though not in the display glasshouses.

As an interesting aside, the Botanic gardens were planning a trip to the Guianas to provide some back-up for their Queen Victoria water lily of which they are justly proud. Even our very own Andrew was considering to be part of the team but I am not sure if it will eventuate because of the fiasco of Len Colgan’s trip to Bolivia where the collected plants are still in Bolivia, alive or dead! I did suggest that while they were there they could collect Brocchinia micrantha which shares with Puya raimondii the title of the largest Bromeliad! This Brocchinia is growing at Marie Selby Gardens and Harry does not want it to flower because it is already at the roof! Because of their concerns I advised them to contact Eric Gouda at Utrecht University because he intimately knows the hot, wet, sticky Guianas! By the way, Eric has visited us Tillandsia freaks in Adelaide and at 6ft 10 inches he is made to collect epiphytic plants whereas I am more suited for ground cover.

My latest foray into the Botanic gardens on 16th June reveals a hive of activity in the vicinity of the pricklies!

MEETING SEPT 11th
Start looking for the following Aechmea to bring to the meeting `cos we want to discuss them!
apocalyptica, blumenavii, calyculata, candida, caudata, coelestis, comata, cylindrata, gamosepala, gracilis, guaratubensis, kertesziae, organensis, pimenti-velosoi, recurvata, winkleri.
Remember, these are the easiest Aechmea to grow in Adelaide so you must have some surviving in your garden.