Tillandsia Pinegrove Click thumbnails for full size, scaled to a new window.
Tillandsia Pinegrove
Unknown parentage.
Derek Butcher 07/10.
Alan Phythian 07/10, 70cm overall.
Derek Butcher's application to have this plant registered....
"Tillandsia ‘Pinegrove’ July 2010.
Name given by Peter Tristram to a plant that Nev Ryan got as an unnamed plant from PineGrove Nursery, NSW in the 1990’s. A check of the records held by this nursery has failed to give any leads as to how it got to Australia.
It does have some link to T. beutelspacheri but the floral bracts are totally covered by white trichomes in the visible part. This species is very variable if based on collections made in the area of Sumidero Canyon, so it seems better to give it a cultivar name. The spike or spikes can be 30cm long and 5cm wide. Typical sub-genus Tillandsia tubular flowers bluish, well exceeding the floral bracts. Many Australians seem to be growing offsets of this rather distinctive plant."
Bruce Dunstan 12/19
Bryan Atkins 12/22, unlabelled
Bryan Atkins 12/22 not beutelspacheri
Bryan Atkins ... "A few years ago I acquired two plants from an op shop, one of which was unlabelled whilst the other was labelled T. beutelspacheri. Last year the unlabelled plant flowered for the first time with an amazing fat single paddle which i have been told and believe to be T. Pinegrove. See photo above.
The second plant, T. beutelspacheri has just flowered for the first time and surprise surprise its not. I believe this to be another form of T. Pinegrove with multiple fat paddles. I only base this on very limited information I can find in the BCR and BinA resources. Photos attached.
The information I found suggests in has links to T. beutelspacheri, probably explains the label, and being the inquisitive person that I am, can any one explain to me how and why this is so." Rob Bower ... "I see Peter Trisram listed on the pics. Any info on the parents Peter?" Peter Tristram ... "There's a bit of info on BinA, with pics showing plants under lean and gluttonous diets! Lol. Neat plant none the less. IMHO it is a species. There has been much discussion about it in this Tillandsia discussion group over the years." Rob Bower ... "Glutinous diet seems to suit it." Ross Little (Pinegrove Bromeliads) ... "The information we have on this plant is still very scant.
It was Harry Luther who thought it might be a T. beutelspacheri natural hybrid.
My search lead me to Dennis Cathcart at Tropiflora Nursery to look at possible links between T. jalisco-monticola 'Peach' and T. 'Pinegrove'.
Dennis directed me toward Steve Correale as being the source of his plants. I contacted Steve Correale's daughter Sue who informed me that her father didn't actually collect the plant "but got it from an unnamed collector on a trip to Mexico about 50 years ago".
Dennis's 'Peach' looks a pretty good match to our 'Pinegrove' but we can't find any link to any plant in the Pinegrove import ledger (BBK) that gives us a direct link to this plant. So how it got here we don't know, we can only speculate that it came in as an "unidentified species" or as one of the many T. fasciculata that were imported by Pinegrove or as ???. Tillandsia jalisco-monticola came in via Okasaki – Hawaii. (maybe need to follow this lead next) Tillandsia beutetspacheri no record of import into Pinegrove. Tillandsia compressa is another name that keeps popping up with this one that it may have come in as that, but there again no direct link without an original PG tag in a plant.
I feel confident that I saw T. 'Pinegrove' in Oaxaca Mexico during our travels through the area but I need to go back to double check and confirm, any sponsors ??
Bryan if you can find out any more info than this it would be greatly appreciated."
