THE BROMELIAD SOCIETY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA, INC.

July/Aug 2007 :Bromeliad Gazette. Vol:31. Number:04
May meeting from the Secretary’s desk.
 What with Hon Pres absent from the office busy eating Chinese banquets for breakfast and hoping to walk or climb it off during the day and Vice Pres at his son’s birthday party the Sec could do what he liked. I would like to thank a participative audience and the assistant secretary for helping me stay on the straight and narrow during the meeting proceedings. Everyone seemed to have had a great time and feed on the visit to Bute on April 1st. Colin Waterman has promised to write a few lines on the happenings. Those at the meeting would have heard some of the detail from Dave Wecker who was allowed 3 minutes to speak on the subject.
It was great to see that the New York Bromeliad Society had published our Gazette article on the Glyph Vrieseas and everyone had a laugh when Herb Plever, the Editor said he had to rewrite it in American English!
Many new members to specialist plant groups such as Bromeliads are somewhat perturbed to find that people talk Latinised plant names rather than common names. This is because we are more interested in specialised plant identity than a general garden club. BUT really it is no different to joining an ethnic group. The more you talk the language the more you understand!
So we had a fun afternoon with Botanical Latin! – Meanings of Latin names and nothing to do with grammar.
First let us look at how Humans communicate. It first started with speech within a small group which expanded to be within tribes. As tribes conquered other tribes so too did the language of the stronger tribe. Some languages were actually recorded in writing and these were the ones than survived. One notable one being Latin which was spread by the Christian Church. This teaching lead to studies in all manner of subjects with Latin being the base.
It is hard to imagine that the English under William the Conquerer spoke French and this lasted some 300 years. Only then did English as a language start to become a viable option and as the British Empire expanded so too did the use of English. This expansion was aided by the USA and lately by computers and the internet. So much so, we now have English as the predominant world language. We know that English is a dynamic language with new words being thought of every minute of the day which is quite alarming to us oldies.
In the 1700s when botany really came of age the written word of the scholar was Latin and this is what we have inherited. Many English words are based on Latin so it is easy to work out the meanings in many cases so do not panic when you see a Latin word. Do not worry too much about pronunciation either because as I have already pointed out there is a difference between the spoken and written word. W T Stearn says that Botanical Latin is meant to be read not spoken! Pronunciation is a localised matter which is why I had Bill Treloar volunteer to write the words on Butcher’s paper! A special thanks to Dave Wecker who supplied the paper and the easel!.As we progressed though the names Bill’s writing improved and even those at the back had no excuse for not being able to read the written word!
We know there are only just over 3000 Bromeliad species names to learn so you haven’t got much to worry about! AND many are named after people or places. But if we look at all the names given to bromeliads in the last 250 years we come to over 7, 500. I had my folder of 130 pages of synonyms to help us AND my Bible - Stearn’s Botanical Latin. David Kruszewski had brought in both Greek and Latin dictionaries – just in case! Jeanne Hall tells me that if you are looking for help in translating you could try the FREE www.tranexp.com:2000 This includes Latin but not Botanical Latin. There is a way to do Botanical Latin but it has to do with downloading programs and I have yet to learn this art! NOW it is an art using translating programs because you may get the answer ‘annoyed’ which means nerved to us, or ‘ears’ for spikes, or ‘pages’ for leaves etc.
Let us start 250 years ago with ‘Bromelia foliis spinosis, fructibus connatis caulem cingentibus’ which Linnaeus used before he thought up the binomial system where plants have surnames and christian names. This translates as a Bromelia with spiny leaves encircling a fruit joined to the stem. It did not take long for one of our quicker witted members to tell us it was a pineapple. Thanks to Linnaeus and his binomial system this is now Ananas comosus (Ananas being a name used by the Indians and Comosus meaning with a tuft
Members were then asked to think up names used on their labels and we would do our best to translate them.
Names given by taxonomists are fascinating for all manner of reasons and some indicate a sense of humour!. Some names are puzzling such as the use of say, spectabilis where the plant is somewhat nondescript. Hindsight is great but if this plant were the first to be found it could well have been spectacular! Sometimes the taxonomist will tell you the meaning of the species name but many leave you guessing!
First some genera you probably have not heard of!
Cremobotrys now Billbergia meaning hanging cluster from the Greek. Come to think of it, this seems a better word than Billbergia
Cuscuta now Tillandsia usneoides is still used for Dodder a leafless parasite in Europe. This shows that 300 years ago Tillandsias were considered to be parasites but we know differently – don’t we!
Hepetis now Pitcairnia from Greek meaning liver. Probably a herbal medicine used by the natives in the Caribbean.
Misandra now Tillandsia meaning hating man so must be found in remote areas
Pironneava now mainly Hohenbergia I don’t know what it means but it seems to be a man’s name!
I then proceeded to look at the plants on display looking for species plants. There were several where we were able to talk about meanings. Everyone seemed to know about Cryptanthus but if the flowers are hidden how is it you can see them! Some plants were hybrids which were glossed over because of my concentration on the main discussion. However, I will deal with these later to show that I did not ignore them entirely.
I will only mention ones that seemed, at least to me, to be out of the ordinary. There were many examples talked about and much Butcher’s paper was used
Everyone seems to be aware that Aechmea is Greek for spear relating to the type of flower head although pronunciation can be a bit dodgy!
We wandered around the meaning of apocalyptica and I was more keen on it being ‘Revelation’ This seemed an odd choice of a word because the plant is so similar to A. gamosepala. Here it was loudly pointed out that I do not know my colours! We soon knocked over gamosepala as meaning joined sepals because all remembered the common name “matchstick’ plant where the glued together sepals form the wooden part of the match!
Aechmea calyculata has an inflorescence as though with a calyx (think of the green bit at the bottom of a rose!) but really a bunching up of scape bracts beneath the inflorescence.
Aechmea coelestis is a tricky one if you take it as written but when you read it it is clear that it means sky blue for the petals
Aechmea fasciata means banded referring to the trichome bands on the outside of the leaf. Similar bands are on Billbergia vittata but why is it that vittate means longitudinal lines. We always link variegation with longitudinal lines
Aechmea nudicaulis means naked (no scales or scurfiness) stem. Stem usually refers to the base of the plant but in this case is really the rhachis or axis of the inflorescence
Aechmea phanerophlebia was a good one to discuss when you understand what phlebitis is about and means, clearly veined relating to the leaves.
Billbergia distachia is an interesting one because this translates as two spikes whereas it might have better called ‘disticha’ meaning the flowers are opposite each other on the rhachis.
Guzmania musaica you would think is spelt incorrectly because it means with mosaic patterns!
Neoregelia ampullacea means like a Greek or Roman ampulla or flask with a rounded base
Neoregelia cruenta had them worried for a while because it means blood stained and refers, of course, to the tips of the leaves!
Neoregelia maculata and marmorata both mean spotted but generally speaking the first one refers to smaller spots!
means scented and we always think of this as being sweet smelling. This species is not known for its perfume and one can only surmise that the taxonomist was there when the central water reservoir and the nectar from the flowers had fermented! In fact it was first published as the ‘Putrid Billbergia’
Nidularium innocentii. Nidus for nest referring to the sunken inflorescence and innocent for pure for the white petals.
Orthophytum disjunctum The genus name means straight plant referring to the erect scape but as we all know this genus also contains species with no scape! The species name means broken or disjointed, referring to the inflorescence
Pitcairnia bifrons is a real beauty where the taxonomist really knew his mythology! Bifrons was a Roman God who had two heads, one looking at the future, one to the past. Because of this ability he was considered to be a teacher of the sciences
Puya mirabilis means wonderful and is apt for a Puya not as spiny as most and with large green flowers
Quesnelia testudo is fascinating because a testudo describes how the Roman soldiers would interlock their shields to repel attack. Here the floral bracts do the same thing repelling unwanted human interference!
Tillandsia crocata was an easy one once they thought of Crocus
Tillandsia ionantha was covered at the request of the assistant Secretary who has a certain passion for them. At first the members were confused because they knew that antha meant flower but what was the ion. After saying ‘wino’ several times the penny dropped although we had to remember it was red wine we were talking about.
Tillandsia myosurus was for some reason an easy option meaning mouse tail but I was of the opinion it was a poor choice of name. It would have been better described as a dead mouse tail because its leaves are rigid. One which does have a limp mouse tail is T. caliginosa which only means drab!
Tillandsia quaquaflorifera raised lots of laughs and even Bill had a hard job spelling it. Was the Quaqua a duck? No, it means in all directions as in polystichous.
Tillandsia xerographica was an interesting one if only for the reason as to why it is pronounced the way it is. It means dry writing and if ever you do see this species in flower you will have to look carefully at the inflorescence to see such dry writing!
Vriesea carinata was easy because it refers to the floral bracts that have a keel like you find on a boat.
Vriesea elata means tall and refers to the inflorescence and scape. In our case the plant we had on display was typical depauperate size for Adelaide conditions
Vriesea hieroglyphica was an easy one for all but we did find out that Cleopatra was a Greek not an Egyptian!
Vriesea erythrodactylon means red fingers referring to the inflorescence

And so to the plants you thought I had missed. Undoubtedly the one to get most comment was the two bucketfuls of Aechmea that Keith Bradtberg had brought in. It had taken him some 15 years to get this far from seed from the American seed bank and the plants had offsetted many times before one plant per bucketful decided to flower. Was it our dry summer that was the trigger? This saga goes back at least 5 years when Keith surprised us with an oddity we could only call ‘Que Sera’ after the Doris day song – ‘Whatever will be will be’! These current plants have links to that! You may see my quirky sense of humour regarding the linking of the name to the name on the seed packet. You see, the name on the seed packet was Aechmea serrata.
In J. Brom Soc. 55: 207-9. 2005 I pointed out to the Bromeliad World that as far as I was concerned the only true Aechmea serrata was being grown in habitat on Martinique or in Europe. The plant growing in the USA and Australia under this name was an imposter and what I thought seemed closer to A. smithiorum.
Back to the meeting where others including Dave Wecker were mumbling under their breath “Butcher by name and butcher by nature”. This was all because Keith allowed me to remove the inflorescences for scientific purposes. In any event I promised him photos of my achievements and this has been accomplished. The inflorescences were clearly different. One looked like what was being grown as Aechmea serrata on the east coast of Australia and in the USA and the other a large heavy inflorescence with lots of flowers. For want of a name I am calling this one ‘Que Sera Superior’ because there are some links and people will want to grow this plant. What I did find very odd indeed was the branches of the compound inflorescence which were in tandem and only had one primary bract for the two branches - A mixed up kid indeed!
We know that Bill Treloar is growing A. ‘Que Sera’ which is basically a simple spike with a few branches at the base, so he will jump at the chance to get a plant with a decent inflorescence.
While Keith got his seed for ‘Que Sera’ in 1990, Peter Franklin in New South Wales had obtained seed of A. serrata the year before and he was somewhat proud when PAF777 flowered. On seeing the inflorescence I suggested to Peter that he call it ‘Sight for Saw eyes’ but somehow the name and plant died a natural death.
If the seed in the BSI seed bank came from the same source then I have strong views that the A. serrata (now query A. smithiorum) is in fact a hybrid with A. fendleri or A. dichlamydea in its genes somewhere. We do know that Hawaiian and Floridian hybridists were busy hybridising these species in the 1970’s and reluctant to register their progeny. Perhaps this is the answer to our dilemma.

Que Sera, photo by Derek Butcher.
Que Sera as "Sight for Sore Eyes", Peter Franklin.
Click on thumbnails for full image.

Que Sera Superior, ex. Bradtberg.
Que Sera Superior, Derek Butcher.
Click on thumbnails for full image.


Finally, we do know that Bill Treloar had large Dyckias on display that he had got from the Northern Territory and was hoping I would identify them for him. You may have noticed how I avoided the subject. I have already been through this exercise at the Adelaide Botanic garden where at least their plants were in flower. I got nowhere there, suggesting that hybridity clouded the issue! Bill will have similar challenges!

June meeting from the Secretary’s desk.
 Cold? Not really and older members who could not make it were replaced by keen newcomers. Pres. and Vice Pres. were again noticeable by their absence but for different reasons to our previous meeting. This time we were more prepared because I knew that Geoff Jarrett, our newish member from Strathalbyn, had spent many years being a Town Councillor and knew all about meetings. Anyway, he chaired the meeting and kept Bill and I in order. He did a great job at such short notice.

And so to the talk I gave on the Tillandsia tectorum complex. Yes, it was species again only this month it was specific species, not species in general. T. tectorum and its mates mainly come from the dry highlands of the Andes in Peru but some are from Ecuador. Just think of 1000 to 3000 metres altitude with Mount Lofty barely touching 1000m. This group is known for its small, mainly bicoloured, flowers – blue at the base and white at the top with one or two exceptions. They seem to be in an isolated group up there in the high Andes. So much so there is talk from some taxonomists that molecular studies suggest there is a link with the small green flowered Mexicans sometimes treated as a genus of their own called Viridantha! How they are linked after so many thousands of years of evolution is hard to imagine.
We then had a quiz left over from last month and the audience had not warmed up enough to really participate.. What does ‘tectorum’ mean? Stunned silence! Strictly speaking it means of the tiles, but you never see them growing on roofs! What was in the back of Morren’s mind in 1877? We know that Sempervivum or (House Leeks – note spelling) were grown on roofs around the Mediterranean area in Roman times to stop lightning strikes and I assume to stop the roof leaking. But, nothing of this seems to apply in Peru. Perhaps Morren considered the Andes to be the ‘Roof of the World’. Alas we will never know.
It depends how finicky you are as to plant identification because we had a wide range of plants on display with varying certainty as to correct names I have been lucky in being able to acquire plants from Lotte Hromradnik, the author of the book called T. tectorum complex . Here we actually know what plants are referred to. I have other plants I have obtained from other sources where I am less certain as to their identity and I can only stress that if you do have any species plant with collection locality data you keep this reference in a safe place! It is sure to be handy if arguments start as to the correct identity of your plant in the future.
There are 15 different names mentioned in the Tectorum book and thanks to Lotte in Austria and Chris Larson in Melbourne who guided them through AQIS I now have 13 of them.
This talk was originally scheduled as a ‘learn how to use a Tillandsia key’ but I changed my mind. We must remember that my Tillandsia key now covers some 159 names this would be a daunting task to even the experienced key user. As Bill pointed out the terms used by the Butchers of this world may seem fine to them but are gobbledy gook to others. Even with the glossary CD I had supplied him for extracurricular work it was heavy work! So here we have a key for only 15 names in the Tectorum group and many copies were handed out for audience participation! We only tried to use the key on three occasions but in all cases it was evident that you should use a key when things are quiet and you can concentrate on following the series of options. But we did get to the correct result in all three occasions! Mind you they had to take my word on the flowering habits of each species being tested!

The following plants plants and differences to look for were presented.
1. tectorum and vars globosa, viridula and forma gigantea. It seems the var. globosa and var. viridula are rare in Adelaide but we do have forma gigantea
2. balsasensis which has been around for years but the floral bracts are lepidote so it could well be the newly named T. chusgonensis.
3. chusgonensis
4. heteromorpha We have always known that we have two forms of this species – the big one now being known as var. rauhii
5. lithophila
6. malyi
7. oblivata not in Australia as far as I know
8. reducta looks very like a T. tectorum. My next job when it flowers is to see if it agrees with the latest description
9. rupicola not in Australia but because it had been treated for years as a T. tectorum may be around somewhere
10. stellifera is a quaint little plant that reminds you of plants in the Diaphoranthema sub-genus of Tillandsia
11. tomekii

Ones where I had difficulty in getting Lotte to identify purely because my collection data was suspect, are as follows.
1. bolivarensis A Karel Knize name suggesting it was found near Bolivar in Peru somewhere. The trouble is that there are several places with this name!
2. camarcensis A Karel Knize name where Camarco is very popular too!
3. ‘Enano’ This is a plant we have had in Australia for 20 years having come from California but originally from Peru. It is a small plant as the Spanish name implies. However you sometimes come across this plant with the latinised name of Enana or enanum which means not dwarf!
4. Mick Romanowski’s plant which I was proud to have but with no collection data. I await flowering in the next 5 years to see what it may key out to.

By now the willing audience was somewhat shell shocked so we had Bill Treloar talk about the other plants brought in.
Vrieseas and Billbergias can usually be relied upon to show a bit of flower colour in the cooler months. The advantage with the cooler months is that even Billbergias stay around longer. So we saw Vriesea ‘Red Dwarf’, ‘Mariae’ and ‘Purple Cockatoo’ and Billbergia ‘Choc Chill’. The last one having come from WA. Comment was made that while in the past it was difficult to get bromeliads into WA it was now just as difficult to get them out!
Bill had brought in a rootbound plant of Fascicularia bicolor var canaliculata that he had brought back to South Australia from Melbourne during a hot spell last summer. We know that it likes cold weather coming from Southern Chile and does not appreciate the heat. We also know that it is a shy flowerer and should not be planted out in the garden because it makes large prickly clumps quite quickly rather than flowering. There used to be large clumps at the Adelaide Bot Gardens before the Glasshouses got demolished ready for the revamping. These flowered regularly in the winter months. To announce flowering the centre leaves should turn red and Bill showed us a plant that had done this. What was interesting was that this had been on the shady side of the plant but another from the sunny side was setting a flower with a minimum of colour in the leaves! Was the plant trying to attract pollinators to the shady area where it ‘considered’ there was a greater chance of seed being set? Plants seem more intelligent than humans in some respects! Mind you, the domesticated forms never seem to set seed, but do so in Chile. This situation also applies in SW England and Ireland where this plant has almost gone ‘native’!
Bill was also worried why his Nidularium had large spots on its leaves. was this caused by the cold weather. We feel sure it is the cultivar ‘Leprosa’ named many years ago because, I suppose, it reminded someone of leprosy. Bill had better look out for red flowers to see if our guess is right. While on this genus we had a ‘kermesianum’ on display. Botanically speaking this is treated as being just one of the very variable N. procerum but no doubt the name will persist on labels.
It was a pity Len Colgan was not there because we had a flowering Aechmea weilbachii which is a rare event in Adelaide. The prize flowering just had to be a 2 metre tall Vriesea philippo-coburgii. Its owner, Dave Wecker maintained this was the result of letting the plant offset freely and he could well be right.
We had a few tillandias to look at. One was a blast from the past because it still had ‘decomposita’ on the label. this should have disappeared 30 years ago so it shows how old the label was. Perhaps we should have had this name at our May meeting because the name is less than awe inspiring! Its proper name is Tillandsia duratii var. saxatilis.

Updated 31/10/07