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January 8th, February 12th, February 26th (last Sunday!), April 9th, May 7th (1st Sunday!), June 11th, July 9th, August 6th (1st Sunday!), September 10th, October 8th, November 12th.
Coming Events.
February 26th Summer Brag.
March 11th and 12th, 10am - 4pm both days OUR SHOW.
April 9th Pricklies inc. Dyckia, Puya, Deuterocohnia, Orthophytum etc
May 7th Derek and Len on the Tillandsia symposium at Albury at Easter
January meeting from the Secretary’s desk.
Due to the temperature rising to 36C the meeting was cancelled. We will have to discuss this ruling again. Cancellation of a meeting causes more work for the Secretary and Assistant Secretary than having a meeting! AND we also have to spend time putting the plants back that had been prepared for the meeting without anyone else seeing them! If we have a Show this cannot be cancelled due to weather. The Hall is air conditioned. If we are concerned about putting plants into hot cars to take them home then surely there is a way to minimise this problem.
Patience is a virtue. It must have been in the 1980’s that we acquired this plant from Art Gummow. He had lost the label and yet it was a Billbergia worth growing. It seemed to hold its red leaves with white spotting forever and because it did not flower the older plants did not deteriorate as more offsets were produced. In fact an ideal plant if you only looked for its leaf colour. Art had never flowered it either so it was a surprise in 2005 when it did flower with pale pink scape bracts and predominantly green inflorescence. Perhaps the trigger was our extra wet October/November. The inflorescence is reminiscent of Billbergia ‘Grace Goode’ and those with reverse parentage but not quite. Regrettably many of these ‘old’ hybrids have not been photographed so we do not know their finer points to allow us to directly link our plant to any of these named cultivars.
The plant also looked like some of the photographs Peter Franklin of Raymond Terrace, NSW had sent us over the years. Thank heaven for internet and Email because I was able to refer our photograph to him. Peter has a unique way of identifying his plants. The name is of secondary importance because each clone is allotted a PAF number and where he got the plant. The use of these numbers and corresponding photographs Peter was able to go to his live plants to seek confirmation. Yes, our plant fitted very well indeed with Billbergia ‘Pria’ – a plant that Peter had got many years ago from Bill Morris. ‘Pria’ came into being in 1967 well before Grace Goode got into the act. The hybridiser was a Joan White who used B. amoena and a plant then known as B. glymiana. Yes, even in those days there were naming problems. Here a species name – albeit an old one linked to B. morelii – had been used for what was eventually agreed to be a hybrid of probably chlorosticta (now saundersii) x amoena and I coined the name ‘Gem’ in 1990.
Also in 1967 Joan White made Billbergia ‘Red Raven’ and its identity and coloured photo is firmly in the records. Thanks to Peter we can now add a photograph of ‘Pria’ to the official records to make identification easier!
After patience comes impatience. You may recall my jumping up and down regarding the false impression given by the plant retail trade that Aechmea ‘Primera’ is under plant patent in Australia. The plants are now flowering and many are not even a form of A. fasciata! One that Alf Carr got has an inflorescence which is reminiscent of a more lax or open spike of A. fasciata. Even this tells you something is awry. You then look at the petals which we all know are blue in A. fasciata quickly turning to red. In this plant the petals are bluish with a yellow tip and are reluctant to open. In other words a real mixed up kid! We know that Chester Skotak did many of these hybrids in trying to find a good spineless Aechmea and some have been registered. Some of the rejections would have been given away only for unscrupulous ones to sell them as ‘Primera’. Remember that ignorance is not the same as innocence! Further investigation has revealed that the plants seem to have originated from Marlborough nursery in Qld but no doubt there are middlemen involved too! There are possibly 7 different sorts with one being the prized Aechmea ‘Maya’ but none being ‘Primera’!. Looks like the ones not worth properly naming got to South Australia. AND that’s not all. These plants look very similar to the old cultivars ‘Friederike’ and ‘Fascini’.
February meeting from the Secretary’s desk.
Our AGM went very quickly because there was no change of officers – seems they all liked what they were doing! Just as a reminder here they are
PRESIDENT Len Colgan
VICE PRESIDENT Adam Bodzioch
SECRETARY Derek Butcher
TREASURER Bill Treloar
COMMITTEE Margaret Butcher, Len Cork, Maureen Hick, Colin Waterman, David Wecker
AUDITORS Keith Bradtberg & Adam Bodzioch
ASSISTANT SECRETARY Margaret Butcher
LIBRARIAN Bill Treloar / George Rudolph / Colin Waterman
AFTERNOON TEA CONVENOR Bev Masters
DOOR TICKETS George Rudolph
RAFFLE TICKETS George Rudolph and other helpers on the day.
TRADING TABLE CONVENOR Keith Bradtberg & Maureen Hick
HOSTESS Carlene Potter/ Eileen Mullins.
POTS & LABELS David Wecker
EDITOR Derek Butcher
Two big decisions were made.
Keep subs at $10 per person, and
STOP the 35C policy for meetings.
So irrespective of forecast temperatures we will hold meetings as scheduled. So while the Jan 2006 meeting was cancelled it is noted that by 4.30pm (our usual knocking off time ) there had been a great reduction in temperature!
And so to the plants! Len was in raptures over a plant that Bob McGregor had brought in. It was huge at about 1m high and Bob had confided in me before the meeting that he would like to bring a big plant into the meeting with only half a label! Many thought it was a Portea because of the open inflorescence and the slender pedicels (stalks that the flowers are on). My first guess was Aechmea spectabilis. It seems it was one from a seedling batch where Len Colgan had got the seed from Venezuela. All other seedlings had died over time except for plants sent to Grace Goode and Ruby Ryde and both duly flowered. The one kept by Len seems to just offset. So here we had one seedling that had got used to Adelaide conditions – albeit 15 years – AND had flowered. We ask Bob to take care of the offsets because it is a clone worth propagating in Adelaide. I would suggest that another 15 years wait for next flowering would be somewhat reduced. But you will need a bit of space to grow it!! It comes from low altitude in Venezuela which if you look up your atlas if quite close to the equator and it is a surprise that it can grow here without extra heat in the winter.
Then to the Tillandsia stand. Tillandsia/Vriesea (or TV for short) barclayana was in flower but bract colour was rapidly disappearing much to Len’s annoyance but the plant does come from humid areas and clearly reacts to Adelaide hot dry Summer days. There is a move afoot to move the Tillandsia-looking-Vriesea back to Tillandsia where they were in the 1930’s!
Tillandsia reichenbachii – the white petalled form that wasn’t sure if it should flower blue – was in full flower and members were urged to sniff it!
Tillandsia secunda grown on a piece of wood and hung up up high is much more manageable than one grown down low or in a pot. At least this was what George was able to show us. If space is at a premium I know what I would do!
It was nice to see a flowering T. capitata – or is it a Capitata? – on the stand. It is the form called ‘Rio Hondo’. This was the plant that caused so many problems 10 years or so ago when it came out of Guatemala as the Guatemalan T. sphaerocephala. The true species comes from Bolivia and amongst many other differences has the stamens inside the petal tube. It was even thought to be a natural hybrid with T. xerographica. Just as T. rhodocephala was considered to be a separate species to T. capitata so too could ‘Rio Hondo’ but that is in the future.
Tillandsia bartramii is a ‘grasartigen’ - I love that German word – from Florida which was often confused with T. simulata. Anyway Maureen had a plant in by that name which I felt sure was really T. juncea yet another grasartigen! At the Feb 26th meeting I’ll make a presentation of what I believe is a T. bartramii for Maureen to grow on and compare.
Then there was the guzmanias brought in by David Wecker showing little heat stress. His success seems to be because he buries the pots in the soil in similar fashion to Bill at Bute. He also has more shade so perhaps you should grow Guzmania like ferns. How do I know he is interested in shade? He is oft seen wandering around with a light-meter in his hand!
I should mention the dainty Vriesea correia-araujoi that was in flower with its delicate white petals . The Butchers had to own up that it was a plant that Mick Romanowski had recently brought over from Melbourne because this plant is generally grown as an annual here in Adelaide!
And then to Grace Goode’s hybrids where Bill helped out Derek.
Certainly in her Bromeliad life, Grace has always lived at Alexandra Headlands in the Sunshine Coast area of Queensland where hybrids by the score have emerged. She didn’t start hybridising until her fifties in the 1970’s and at that time Billbergia was her fancy. The Butchers first visited her in 1979 and were absolutely amazed at the colour and variety of her hybrids. She said Billbergia were the easiest to hybridise because the sex parts were so accessible. I believe that this early part of her hybridising career were her best because she was doing primary hybrids – that is species x species with a few species crossed hybrids included. We know that nature has taken hundreds of years to produce the various species by natural selection. If you cross species with a species you will get plants in between and some can have the better attributes of both parents. The further you move away from this concept the less visible differences occur and lack of culling makes matters worse. In other words selection for the best should occur.
Over the years Grace has made and registered over 600 hybrids. Billbergias were her first love and there is even one on display with that name! She did not stay long with billbergias and from the 8 plants on display you could see the clear selections she made in this genus. The same applied to Aechmea but we had none of these to look at.
In these early years Grace did many Neoregelia hybrids. One of her first great successes was with Neoregelia ‘Charm’ but such a success meant a strong demand where many were sowing seed from ‘Charm’ and selling it under the same name. I try to use the photograph in J. Brom. Soc. 29(6): 257. 1979 as an example of what to expect with this cultivar. It could well be that Grace treated it as a grex and only took a photo of the ‘best’ one. Or it could be that over the years slight mutations have occurred with each successive offset. So, today you see Neoregelia ‘Charm’ with largish spots on the leaves whereas the ‘true’ one should have myriads of fine spots. We must not forget the grex that produced ‘Amazing Grace’ her first hybrid with red lines on the leaves. And then there are ‘Blackie’ and ‘Sheer Joy’. In fact we had 24 hybrids to look at spread over her productive years.
More recently she produced the almost black leaved Neo.’Mandela’ and ‘Nelson’ but her main aim in these later years was toward the smaller plants like ‘Alley Cat’ and ‘Pheasant’.
We must not forget her foray into Tillandsia with T. ‘First Born’ which had been brought in.
She has recently decided to ‘retire’ from hybridising and has sold her collection.
I leave it to you to decide which of her hybrids are good and those not so good. Hybrids are like wines – there is a lot of personal preference in them.
Tillandsia xerographica in Guatemala.
By L. Hromradnik in Die Brom. 2: 57-60. 2005. Translated by George Rudolph.
It is known that T. xerographica is one of seven Tillandsia species, which are included in appendix 2 of the Washington Protection Agreement, now known as CITES, because this plant after decades of intensive collection for sale is in danger in the wild.
In 1996 from Guatemala alone officially 190 tons of tillandsias were exported and Holland the worlds greatest importer of plants, followed by the USA and Japan as the greatest buyers of plants from Guatemala. In the years 1999-2003 some large importations of 100,000s of T. xerographica, which were supposed to be propagated, but a large portion were discovered to be plants collected in the wild and were confiscated.
In 2003 because of this, the EU. placed an import ban on this plant as trade in this plant would endanger the plant in the wild. A Dutch commission was formed to explore the status of T. xerographica in nature in Guatemala and see if further export of this plant collected in the wild was possible without endangering the species. It was also necessary to decide how government inspectors would determine the difference between wild and cultivated plants before export.
The scientific Director of the Botanic Institute of the University of Vienna asked for an Austrian “Bromeliad Expert” with a detailed knowledge of growing and cultivating tillandsias and I was approved. Two Dutch experts, Dr. Chris Schuerman,CITES representative, and Dr. Eric Gouda Custodian of the Botanic Gardens of the University of Utrecht, also took part in the weeklong study tour, which partly solved the language problem between the only Spanish speaking and the only English speaking participants!.
It was no holiday, relaxation or exploration trip of the usual kind. Even before leaving for Guatemala, an exact time-table with many deadlines was set; meetings with nursery owners and exporters; talks with members of the ministries; with the Nature-Protection CONAP and the botanical members of the University. In Guatemala we spent one day in the countryside with long trips for information with visits to different T. xerographica nurseries.
In Guatemala there are 22 known Tillandsia nurseries, of which 7 are registered as producers of T. xerographica. The plant stock must be controlled by inspectors every 4 months. Only registered nurseries with the ability of propagation, to maintain the balanced amount of parent stock without the use of plants from the wild, receive an export license.
In addition are a few non-registered and therefore illegal nurseries which have no export-license but probably sell plants to exporters.
In past years different methods have been detected in exporting illegally wild collected T. xerographica in large numbers, hidden in exports of ordinary green plants. After three of these instances up to now, the nurseries were shut down. The plants were not confiscated and the nurseries could start up again under a different name. It is hoped that our visit will change this.
The fines compared to the number of exported plants is ridiculous. In 1999 a consignment of 100,000 T. xerographica collected in the wild was confiscated and the seller was fined US $ 250. If you take the wholesale price of $1.50-2.00 the consignment was worth $150.000-200,000. Even the highest fine of US $2,500 would not be a deterrent.
The 6 of us who inspected nurseries for T. xerographica showed a stock plant count of very different numbers and origin. While some have been registered for 15-20 years and believable because there was no plant increase with plants from the wild. We found one registered in 1989 which had bought plants from the wild in 1995, as well as 2000 plants from other nurseries. This explains the discrepancy between numbers of pathetic looking so called cultivated stock plants and the large number of beautiful young plants, where most had been taken from the wild.
In the nurseries we found different methods of cultivating and multiplying T. xerographica which even in its habitat only flowers at the age of 20 or more years, produces 1-3 offsets, of which the first is the largest and about 1 year after flowering is taken off and then supposed to replace the stock plant. More offsets come later, grow slower and need 2-3 years for export size. The circle from flowering stock plant to the next flowering takes three years. With this method of multiplying for continuing export is hard to believe and is so time consuming. The black sheep amongst the nurseries would rather throw the stock plants away after the removal of the offsets and replace them by buying new plants.
Uwe Feldhoff tried many years ago with chemicals to increase the number of offsets and so increase the number of plants. Meanwhile by using his knowledge and using his tried “formula” in other nurseries the number of plants available has reached an unbelievable scale.
First the stock plant is prevented from flowering (which is not wanted) through the use of hormones which when stopped, produce many offsets which are removed relatively early. With optimum shade, watering, fertilizing and the use of fungicide and pesticide every one of the 3,000-60,000 stock plants bring 3 more generations of offsets (reportedly 8-10) which grow in 1.5-3 years to masses of perfect, almost clone-like, plants suitable for export. 20-30% are held back to increase the stock. The productivity increases through this method by 300% but even by this method a steady number of 17 stock plants is necessary to export 1 plant every month.
In comparison the effort to propagate T. xerographica from seed has only been tried in the last few years. No young plants larger than 10cm and older than 5 years could be seen.
The largest business was only registered in 1999. They have 3 hectares of shade houses (will be increased to 28 ha) and a 1.5 square km forest in original habitat of T. xerographica. The owner took from the supposed 500,000 T. xerographica (by our account that number is greatly exaggerated) 67,000 plants as stock plants to his nursery where by 2003 the number had increased to 120,000. The grounds are protected by armed guards against thieves. So far no export. The owner intends to export 150,000 in 2005, 500,000 in 2006 and in 2008 1,000,000 plants at 50 cents each “so everybody can afford them”. The owner has a construction firm and runs the nursery, which also has 100,000 T. harrisii, as a hobby.
As doubtful as the number of mother plants is, the method he uses is successful, a cross between natural growing and the use of chemicals. The plants are shaded, watered and fertilized like the other method but allowed to flower. In the shade houses humming birds buzz about and pollinate the flowers and on the older plants are seedlings which are removed and laid on nets.
Certainly there are many more T. xerographica in the nurseries than in the wild.
The only known habitat of T. xerographica with certainty, is in a dry area in the valley of Rio Motagua at the foot of Sierra de las Minas. There is also the small village San Agustin Acasaguastlan with a lovely pilgrim church and a little park with ancient Breadfruit Tree, Ceiba peltandra, the national Tree of Guatemala on which is found the greatest number of T. xerographica in Guatemala. 80-100 large plants and many more young plants as well as many other tillandsias. The population of the village has through petitioning, hopefully stopped the cutting down of this tree.
We were recommended to visit a side valley of Monte Spinoso. There is supposed to be a beautiful stand of T. xerographica better than anywhere else. We tried a count at a height of 600m on a stretch of 8km with a visibility of 30-50m we saw 16-30 examples, that is number of plants per square km between 32-125.
Also a count by the University of Guatemala of T. xerographica for the original growing area in the last 2 years resulted in 7 down to 1 plant per square km. So you would say T. xerographica in Guatemala in nature is nearly extinct.
Experts like Uwe Feldhoff with years of experience realize without measures like re-seeding in the wild, the possibility of survival is not very good. Pressure on the rest of the plants at $1-2 per collected plant, through illegal trade is too great.
Apart from T. xerographica statements made by the Nature Protection Board suggest many more tillandsias are nearly extinct in nature through mass collecting. Like T. harrisii, T. streptophylla, T. pruinosa, T. filifolia, T. deflexa, T. magnusiana and T. matudae. Indeed some are mass-produced for the trade but they came from the wild and are still taken from nature as a visit to a now closed nursery showed. There were 100,000s tillandsias undoubtedly collected in the wild, like T. streptophylla, T. fuchsii var. gracilis, T. seleriana as well as T. xerographica. They were stored under terrible conditions and were rotting.
As a result of the report by Dr. Chris Schuermann the import ban of the EU has been lifted, however a new export quota has been given by the investigative team after considered judgement even including the non-registered nurseries.
Finally the author would like to point out that the remarks and data are not a guess but backed by the Guatemalan CITES, the Nature Protection Advisor of Guatemala, the botanists, and some of the responsible nursery men who are concerned about the continued survival of these species in nature.
Vriesea ‘Vista Charm’ or ‘Derek’s Dilemma’.
by Derek Butcher.
I don’t think the John Arden hybrid ‘Vista Charm’ is in Australia although several of us have imported some of his hybrids. I contacted Lynn Hudson of Cairns who, I know, has a passion for John Arden hybrids. On seeing the photograph she wished she had Vriesea ‘Vista Charm’ – but alas. It is an impressive hybrid made in 1983 from Vriesea schwackeana and V.ensiformis retaining the red bracts of V. ensiformis.
For some years now, we in Adelaide have been growing a plant with the label (schwackeana x ensiformis) which had come to us from Queensland, presumably the Brisbane area. Recently it flowered and Olive Trevor was unable to give us any clues as to its origin. You see, I was ready to call the plant ‘Vista Charm’ and contacted John Arden as to his thoughts. He agreed on the differences where the influence of V. schwackeana is more evident in my plant and he could not relate it to his ‘Vista Charm’. So I was in a dilemma because the ‘new’ plant needed a name if only to separate it from John Arden’s ‘Vista Charm’. I then had a brainstorm. Why not call it ‘Derek’s Dilemma’?
This may not have relevance but in 1984 ‘Manuscript of Bromeliad Hybrids and Cultivars" by Brian Smith and in 1991 “Preliminary Listing of all known Cultivar and Grex names for the Bromeliaceae” there is a reference to this same parentage in a Deleon Catalogue #3 of unknown date. Clearly, whoever was responsible did not take any action. I wonder if our plant can be traced to this ancient hybrid.
The name perhaps sums up the feelings that some of us have in trying to catch up on the laziness of others. Lynn confirmed she was growing ‘Derek’s Dilemma’ too so it must be fairly widespread around Queensland. If you have the plant please use the Cultivar name to save others in the future confusing it with ‘Vista Charm’.
Not to be confused with ‘Adam’s Dilemma’ which is a different plant altogether and was on the special raffle table at the February meeting!!