Ross Little 23/12/13 Chris: This is the plant I mentioned to you today I have tagged as T. 'Percal'. Thoughts ???
Chris Larson 23/12/13 Hi Ross. That is what I have as Percal. Mine had more branching, but it is the same thing. If in doubt post it here & ask Pam.
Ross Little 23/12/13 Chris: I'm fine with it, Bruce D. wasn't quite sure was all and I couldn't find a photo on the BCR or on the DVD to confirm its ID.
Derek Butcher 24/12/13 I confirm that a photo of 'Percal' is on the DVD. It is said to come from Costa Rica. Perhaps we should make a New Year's resolution to register as many of these nurseryman's names of T. fasciculata as we can. I was hoping that Brian Sidoti would give us an insight into this species the same as Juan Pinzon did for the T. utriculata for his Doctorate but alas.
The advantage with registering is that detail is captured rather than hearsay. We have details on Beauty, Hondurensis, Jim Hyde, Naundorff, Pat Coutts, Tropiflora and Unispica. So it is reasonable that we try to solve the Percal bit.
Derek Butcher 27/12/13 I have worked up something for a Tillandsia Fasciculata Group.. see attached. I have some 27 in this group but extras to look at are this 'Percal' and perhaps 'Chacalapa', 'Corsa' (there is already an ionantha with this name so this has to be straightened out) and 'Magnifica'. Please let me know any information you may know regarding these names.
Bruce Dunstan 29/12/13 Derek: Could we add T. rangelensis to the list of related spp.?
Derek Butcher 30/12/13 Bruce: First I must ask why this species? It was not mentioned in Sidoti's paper and when it was described in 2009 it was compared with T. moscosoi.
I don't have a photo of it alive!

'Chacalapa' John Olsen

var fasciculata 'Chacalapa' Mexico GA

'Chacalapa' Peter Tristram

Greg Aizlewood 03/20

Bryan Atkins 01/21 as 'Guatemala'

Rob Bower 01/21 fasciculata(left) Compressor*(right)

Bryan Atkins ... "I have this smallish plant labelled fasciculata Guatemala and I can’t seem to find much information on it. Looking for any suggestions as to wether this is a valid name or not, or any other relevant information I can attribute to it."
Chris Larson ... "This looks like one of the many plants imported under the name T. fasciculata "Tricolor" from the 70s to the time the imports stopped from the Americas in 2014. The name T. faciculata "Tricolor" was never registered, nor should it have been, but the Guatemalans shipped many plants all over the world under this name. These were never consistent, varying with each import. So many were sold as T. fasciculata ex-Guatemala or T. fasciculata 'Guatemala'. Hunderds upon hundreds came in over this time. So it is highly likely Guatemala is not a cv. name, but a detail of origin.
(If they had all been registered there would be hundreds of names for this group alone. The numbers the commercial nurseries imported of these is massive. I do not believe in lumping plants under an existing cv. name, because I have seen this happen over the years, and have seen the mess it has created. "Oh, it looks close enough to that photo", then you grow the real one side by side with the one you had lumped, side by side, & they are chalk and cheese. If I only had a dollar for every time I'd seen a mistake by people doing this .....)
I did separate one of these Guatemalan forms as T. fasciculata 'Front Cover', and registered it as such. There may be other Guate T. fasiculatas that others have registered.
The name T. fasciculata Guatemala just means it is another T. fasciculata from Guatemala. So it is not a cv. name - and therefore there will probably not be much information under this name."
Chris Larson ... "I had some interesting further email correspondence from Pamela Koide-Hyatt on this one:
First email: I agree with all your comments here on this small tillandsia that was sold by many names, especially T. fasciculata v. tricolor. Many years ago after discussions with Harry Luther we decided that this was just T. compressa. It is a little smaller than the T. compressa that I have seen in Mexico. So that is what we call it.
Second email (in response to me saying I found all the fasculata confusing): All the fasciculata aff. are very confusing. I suspect that someday many will be published with species names. They are so different geographically, so I try to separate them by their locality. But sometimes even on the same tree you can see different colors and forms growing together. The compressa types are distinct with their slightly inflated simple spikes. There are also lots of things sold as compressa that probably are not.
Yes, I have seen the Guatemalan compressa branch on occasion, usually only one other branch, they present in an upright way, not laterally. I have seen the same branching with the Mexican one from Occozocautla and the one from Jamaica.
This to me makes sense. Bryan's plant could be considered T. compressa. These sometimes branch as Pam says.

Bryan Atkins ... "Thanks for passing on this information. It’s very gratifying receiving so much information and history from a simple question regarding a plant’s identity. After some searching I managed to find a photo of the T. compressa (Guatemala) from BRT and visually it does looks similar to mine."
Peter Tristram ... "At least mark Guatemala on the label. I have plants from Selby, where Harry worked, labelled compressa ex Mexico, that Harry Luther later agreed weren’t compressa, something ü described, and restricting the species to the West Indes. He said the mainland species need further work, new names. Nothing is simply solved, not in the Brom world!"
Chris Larson ... "My tag would be something like: 'T. sp Aff. T. compressa ex-Guatemala'."
Andrew Flower ... "In NZ I imported hundreds of these from Guatemala, and after realising they were misnamed registered them as Tillandsia Compressor - see BCR Compressor."
Bryan Atkins ... "Well, this just gives me more to think about but to include all about the name in regards to Pete’s and Chris’s suggestion I might need a bigger tag. I checked my plant against the T. ‘Compressor’ and thought I was seeing double.....Albeit with a few minor differences."
Rob Bower ... "Heres a pic of compressa and a look alike magnispica on the left."
*Andrew Flower ... "Rob: The picture on the right is my image of the cultivar Tillandsia 'Compressor' - granted the name may be confusing, but this plant is NOT the species Tillandsia compressa, it is one of a number of plants imported from Guatemala and named incorrectly."

Tillandsia fasciculata Group
Ever since Lyman Smith published Flora Neotropica Part II in 1977 we have seen Nurserymen giving names to special forms of T. fasciculata which had been found in the wild. There are also plants from private collections that have not been formally identified as well as hybrids within the complex. Some have been registered, some not. It is difficult to link these names with some of the new species described since 1977, because botanists rarely refer to cultivar names or nurseryman’s names in their notes. Therefore it is possible that these cultivar names are part of the following species. We leave you to decide!
Tillandsia fasciculata complex according to Brian Sidoti and Kenneth Cameron at Monocots Conference 2013.
acostae, beutelspacheri, compressa, copalaensis, fasciculate, fasciculata v. clavispica, fasciculata v densispica, fasciculata v. densispica forma alba, fasciculata v. venosispica, flavobracteata, grossispicata, gunther-nolleri?, hubertiana, inopinata, kuzmae, jalisco-monticola, magnispica, marabascoensis, polita, rhomboidea, rodrigueziana, rothii, rotundata trelawniensis, welzii , zoquensis. This entry 12/2013

Chart 1 Table comparing the different characters in Tillandsia fasciculata, T. grossispicata, and T. inopinata