Linda Wilkes 10/17

John Olsen 12/18

Linda Wilkes ... "Another of our gorgeous species preparing to bloom."
Chris Larson ... "Beautiful plant. One of the larger forms. The detail of the altitude at which it grows (on the disc) is a little vague, so I’ve been keeping it well protected (warm). Have you been growing in a more protected spot? Or have you (or anyone else) noticed whether it is cold tender?"
John Olsen ... "I have 2 forms which only differ in size really and they do well in Brisbane without special treatment."
Linda Wilkes ... "We have kept it in our temp controlled hot house over winters since we bought it , not game to tempt fate with it until we have more than one to see if it will handle a winter outside here with the frosts . The coldest it would have gotten here for it is 11 degrees when the outside temps were 2 and below. We grow it pretty open during most of the year usually just hanging out on an open wire rack."
Justin Lee ... "I'm going to throw a spanner in the works. I've been growing it here since 2010. It hasn't flowered yet but seems to be coping well."
Peter Tristram ... "T. buchlohii certainly does best if grown like xerographica - warm to hot, humid and pretty dry most of the time. For me there’s a sliding scale of growth from my Till tunnel, heated to 8C to an Unheated house to outside where it’s really slow. I admire Justin’s courage!
In my hardly heated tunnel they pup and bloom regularly. For the record the big form was purchased from Tropiflora by me in 2012 from memory. Chris and I have another form that appears smaller which we purchased from Pam much earlier(Birdrock Tropicals) but I haven’t bloomed one yet. Chris?
Great species with a fantastic shiny red inflorescence and pure white flowers, a bit like an out of control vernicosa."
Pam Butler ... "Mine is growing outside in all weather. I am colder than John in winter. I will try one in the shadehouse and compare the growth."
Chris Larson ... "Peter, yes I have flowered it. As John says, same but smaller."

Bob Hudson 11/20

Dale Dixon 01/21

Dale Dixon 01/21

Dale Dixon ... "I have two plants flowering. Not sure if they are different clones but I’ve transferred pollen regardless. It maintains the brownish-pink leaf colour all year in my conditions. Three pups already evident in the crown."

Plant long stemmed similar to T. latifolia, flowering to 50cm high. Leaves numerous, arranged spirally.
Leaf sheath 3cm long, 3.5cm wide, pale light brown, enclosing the stem.
Leaf blade thin lance like, to 30cm long, 2cm wide near sheath, rolled inwards, tapering to a very thin tip, underneath clearly nerved, both sides dense appressed lepidote, scales small with green centre.
Scape exceeds the leaves, to 25cm long, thin, green, scattered lepidote.
Scape bracts dense, upright, the bottom ones leaflike, the upper ones blade-less, green to reddish brown, acuminate, dense grey lepidote.
Inflorescence laxly bipinnate, rarely tripinnate, to 13cm long, 6cm wide, with ca. 5 erect spikes.
Primary bracts 2 – 3cm long, brownish red, top side densely scaled, sharply acuminate, shorter than the spike.
Spike long stemmed (to 4cm from base), with a 1.5cm high bract, thin, to 7cm long, 0.6cm wide, weakly convex, laxly 6 – 10 flowered.
Spike rhachis green, naked, visible at flowering, bent upwards.
Flower bracts erect, adjacent to the rhachis, not keeled to weakly keeled, red brown, to 15mm long, acuminate, the edges abundantly and the tip scattered scaled, a little shorter than the sepals, when dry strongly nerved.
Sepals thin lancelike, to 17mm long, thin, the posterior ones keeled, the tip reddish, free.
Petals white, 2.5cm long, 3mm wide, making a tube, with blunt reflexed tips.
Stamen & Style deeply enclosed, filament pleated in upper part.
Holotype BGH Nr. 33 518, HEID
Habitat Paraguay without exact location.
Named after Prof. Dr. G. Buchloh, University of Hohenheim, Germany

T. buchlohii is an interesting newly found plant from Paraguay, where the exact location is unfortunately not known. The plant came from Fa. Sudpflanzenimport (SPI, Wiesbaden) that imports bromeliads and cactus from Paraguay, to the Botanical garden of the University of Heidelberg. It resembles vegetatively on the basis of its long stem, a T. latifolia, especially the var. divaricata (Bentham) Mez, but these have wider, horizontal spreading spikes, shiny, densely imbricate, clearly carinate floral bracts and much smaller, pale violet flowers. Moreover, T. latifolia var. divaricata comes only from Ecuador and North-Peru.

Also differs from T. vernicosa which has
1. No stem
2. Is much smaller and always in dense clumps
3. Thin leaves
4. Small, complanate, to 20 flowered digitate and sessile spike (without sterile basal part)
5. Floral bracts densely imbricate (Rhachis not visible)
6. Sepals not keeled

WALTER TILL in Bromelia Dec 1996

During a visit to the herbarium of the Instituto Miguel Lillo (LIL), in San Miguel de Tucuman, Tucuman Province, Argentina, several specimens were chosen for detailed study at the Botanical Institute, University of Vienna (WU), Austria. The specimen reported on here is especially interesting.
Herbarium sheet #11354 (LIL) consists of an entire inflorescence, with the upper portion of the scape on the left and the lower portion on the right. The label attached to this sheet is of the type used at LIL during the first half of this century. It exhibits the following Spanish text: "Tillandsia polystachia, Brazil, Mato Grasso, Cerro Pan de Azucar, 9.11.1945, epifita y terrestre, "deb." Albornoz, leg. T. Rojas, det. L. B. Smith" (sic!).
This specimen was not cited in the Flora Neotropica (1977). A comparative analysis shows that Rojas' material (no number) is very similar to the protologue of Tillandsia buchlohii Rauh and to the isotype of this species deposited at WU. However, W. Rauh (1983) described this new species from material from cultivation in Paraguay, without mentioning the exact location. If this species were actually to be found in Paraguay, it must occur in the northeastern part of the country.
Based on Rojas' specimen, it is now possible to identify not only the true geographic origin of the species, but also to record this new occurrence for the Brazilian flora. Apparently there is only one mountain in Mato Grosso do Sul known as "Pao de Acucar" (Anonymous, 1963). It is located a short distance east of Porto Murtinho on the Paraguayan border, beside Highway BR 267(21° 24 'S 57° 51 'W). It is quite possible that Theodoro Rojas crossed the border at Porto Murtinho to collect plants in the vicinity, just as it also may be that the type of T. buchlohii is from nearby areas on the Paraguayan side.