In 2002 Keith Green of New Zealand contacted me about a plant Green’s Nursery had grown from seed offered in the Brom Soc Australia seed list Sept 1988. He even sent me photos of the plant in flower. After discussion with Peter Franklin of Newcastle, NSW we decided it had to be the ill defined Aechmea mulfordii rather than the more common A. callichroma. It had been grown from seed so there was a great chance of it being a hybrid. The trail ended there because although Peter Franklin had a plant of this name from Olwen Ferris it had never flowered. We do not know where Olwen got her plant.

Now to a current date where Don Beadle revealed the name A. ecuadoriana had been wrongly used when a Billbergia amoena v cylindracea had been imported from Seidel in the 1980’s - See detail on the resurrection of this variety of B. amoena. On checking the catalogue from Alvim Seidel, Santa Catarina, Brazil, for 1976 I found Aechmea equadoriana and again in their catalogue in 2007. Thanks to the search engine in my computer I was able to find out that Tropiflora in Florida, USA, in their 1981 catalogue A. equadoriana was also on offer. So the plant was in circulation and someone somewhere, other than these two nurseries must be growing this plant. We have asked Tropiflora but there is no current trace of a plant with this name. We have asked Seidel’s Nursery but they could not help so we can only assume they are not currently selling any plants under this name. What I find intriguing about the name is that if it had been in Ecuador it should have been called A. ecuadoriensis and only if it were named after a person who found it, thus A. ecuadoriana. But investigations seem to indicate that it originated in Brazil. We intend to record these names as Aechmea ecuadoriana hort, Aechmea equadoriana hort. and Aechmea aequatorialis hort. with cross referencing, in case someone comes across these names in the future.