Tillandsia Renate
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Tillandsia Renate
cv. ionantha
From BCR ... "A variegated form of ionantha obtained from Renate Ehlers in Germany. Exact origin unknown. Ionantha Group."
Bruce Dunstan 06/17
Peter Tristram ... "Indeed a lovely ionantha AND it is named - T. Renate. There is another variegated ionantha that is larger and more open but unnamed as far as I know. Not easy to tell it's variegated either when well fed and not wet!"

Chris Larson 04/21 ... "I have been looking at social media, then at the pics on Facebook. I have noticed that the pics of T. ionantha Renate on the BCR are not so good. Even mine is barely recognisable.
Can anyone with pics that show the attributes well - both in flower and out of flower - send them to me so that we can update the BCR - with your permission to use the photos of course."
Renate, James Hall
ionantha marginated Aaron Toh
ionantha marginated PHG
ionantha variegated Lloyd Godman
ionantha 'Selecta' Wen-Hua Chiu, Taiwan

Images from Geoff Lawn's collection for BCR

Geoff Lawn ... "T. Renate has bothered me also because the variegation seems ill-defined in the BCR photos. --I assume it's supposed to be marginated.
I have saved several Facebook photos so-named but not used them because I don't know their provenance and as several are from Asia, possibly they are sports independant of T. Renate.
I even saved a Facebook photo from 2015 of a median-striped form of ionantha "Selecta"(un-registered) but don't know how wide-spread it is, because it doesn't seem to have been photographed since.
Sorry but I don't have spare time to research all these ionantha items thoroughly and make decisions about their use (or not) to include in the BCR.
Then, there are a number of unnamed crested T. ionantha types to sort out---any volunteers ? "

Chris Larson ... "From what Derek Butcher said, Margaret's T. Renate struggled. He told me I was the only one Margaret gave one to, before it passed.
Peter Tristram & I got 2 plants from Andreas Boeker in Germany. One is indistinguishable from Margaret's plant. Mine are now mixed up. The other looks like the T. Selecta in your photos.
Lloyd Godman tells me that his is neither of these. I have not grown it - so I don't know.
For these ones.
1. James Hall's would be T. Renate - but again the photo doesn't show the relevant attributes to communicate the nature of the plant. James would likely have sourced this from Peter, or me, or someone that got them from us. So I think he is right.
2. Aaron Toh's would be Renate
3. PHG would be T. Renate
4. Lloyd's is not. From what Lloyd tells me it is a different source again.
5. Your PGH looks identical to the one grown as T. ionantha variegated in Australia, from Andreas Boeker. This plant is very unstable, in my experience.
As you can see, the plant that James grows, the plant Derek grew, and the photo of mine on the BCR don't look like the photos of Toh's or PGH - but due to experience, looking at collections in different states - & growing them both in very varied cultural conditions, ie. both cold & under climate controlled conditions here in Melbourne, I am pretty confident of my call.

The big problem with some of these forms of ionantha is that they perform differently under differing climates & culture. My aim is to get the photos of T. Renate to convey this.

Now to the crests. Due to the variability in different climates and culture - I could not make a call, due to lack of experience growing them and knowing the origins of each. I have them from 2 sources - and am confident that one is not from the imports I did with Peter Tristram. To my mind there is currently too much practise of defining things grown under different conditions, and naming them - often after the person giving them a name has only been growing them for one generation - sometimes flowering them either early or late - giving them a size difference to normal - then saying: Hey mine is different.
You see this all the time, as we have discussed Geoff. You can't do this unless you know the origins of the "new plant" are different to what is commonly around, and also grown it long enough to know it is not an aberration - if you don't know the plants origins, it takes longer to be certain.
But - with the number of newby's coming into our hobby, many are jumping on aberrations without properly assessing the situation. I have many people contacting me after procuring these "new plants" from social media, only to find no difference to what they have already.
Enough of the rant. We need to straighten up T. Renate on the BCR."
Bruce Dunstan 04/21, Renate ex Bob Hudson
Bruce Dunstan 04/21, ionantha variegated
Bruce Dunstan ... "ionantha Variegated - I have got these from Peter Tristram and Alan Pythian. They are a little unstable and will occasionally throw their variegation."
Mark Supple 04/21, Renate
Brad Giles 09/21
Peter Tristram, Renate
Peter Tristram, ionantha variegated BOE1024
Peter Tristram, Renate & variegated
Peter Tristram ..."Here are some more pics of what I imported from Andreas Boeker in Germany as BOE1024, as per the BCR image. In Andreas’s list he has ionantha ‘variegata’ as 1699 though this could be ‘Renate’. They are two very different plants."
Pam Butler 04/21
Pam Butler ..."Left - Ex Chris Larson
Centre - variegated but looks like I got one that isn't variegated Ex Peter Tristram
Right - Ex Neville Ryan"


Updated 02/10/21