Ken Woods, 02/08.

Andrew Flower*, 16/11/10.

* Andrew Flower: AB677 I got from the late Jean Young in 2003. She was one of the "old time" collectors who was around in the 1970's, and said she had it since those times. Flowering plant around 10cm.
AB717 is a great big fat thing that never flowers - it came from Len Trotman in the 1990's, and was likely to be a much more recent import from the USA.

Chris Butler*, 22/05/10.

Mark Supple**, 17/11/10.

Mulford B. Foster***, 1956.

* Chris Butler: Looking through the various sites and Derek’s 2009 disk, believe the attached photos to be T. Victoria or T. Victoria ‘Red Cap’. (Reply from Derek Butcher: "We know that 'Victoria' was imported years ago. We know that 'Victoria Red Cap' is a recent American hybrid. We also know that Olwen Ferris named a remake 'Richard Oeser' but we do not know who grows this or what it looks like. We know that Olwen's success rate with Tillandsia seed was very low so it may not have even survived."
** Mark Supple: Hi Derek. I have had this plant for some time. Got it from a Steven Clarke in Sydney. It is coming into flower again, this is from an earlier flowering, the plant size is 140mm high span of 140mm. (Reply from Derek Butcher: "You'll have to decide if you have a large 'Richard Oeser' or a small 'Victoria'"
*** Mulford B. Foster in Brom Soc Bull 6(1): 10. 1956. See Detective Derek 12/10 for more details.

Margaret Patterson*, 30/10/10.

Pam Koide.

See Detective Derek 12/10 for more details.

* Margaret Patterson: The largest growth here is about 30 cms high. I have had the plant for around 20 years. It came from Grace Goode with the name "Victoria large from New Zealand" on the label. It will colour a bit better in very strong light.
I have plants of all of the following; T. Victoria (Olwen Ferris). T. Victoria (Dr Oesser) these two are very similar. T. Victoria seedlings of a remake made by myself which are much larger than the first two but much smaller than T. Victoria large from New Zealand. I also have plants of brachycaulos hybrid A (from Olwen Ferris) which are different again.

Alan Phythian (see CL notes 06/19)

Chris Larson 11/22

Chris Larson 10/23 a giant Asian form

Mulford Foster in BSI Journal ... "This new hybrid was made in March 1943; it matured and flowered for the first time in 1954. In all its characters it resembles a king- size T. ionantha and shows none of the features of its paternal plant T. brachycaulos, except that it has a slight trace of a scape, although it is not visible nor evident as in T. brachycaulos. In every other feature, however, it is just a giant sized T. ionantha."
Bob Hudson ... "It is an interesting Tillandsia, I have 3 forms of so called T. Victoria. The one that Grace Goode had is a very grey plant not at all green like the others."
Chris Larson 06/19 ... "This is Alan's T. Victoria courtesy of Alan Phythian. Same one referred to in Bob's comment above as Grace's form."
Chris Larson 11/22 ... "T. x victoria was a plant named as such because it was a natural hybrid of T. brachycaulos x T. ionantha found in Mexico and Guatemala.
This cross has also been done by many hybridists.
The provenance of the plants were not kept, so most renamed their plants T. Victoria in the assumption that they are most likely man made hybrids.
Here are 2 forms - the one on the right is from Rainforest Flora in the USA. The one on the left is one we sourced in Asia. Both beautiful plants.
There are many others done by other hybridists in Australia as well as other countries - so there are other forms, other than these 2, floating around Aussie collections. Different forms of the parents have been used, so the results vary.
(I can hear Geoff Lawn, BCR Registrar, tut tutting, and rightly so - but the cat's out of the bag - and has been for a long time.)"

“A NEW HYBRID TILLANDSIA” by Mulford B. Foster in Brom Soc Bull 6(1): 10. 1956
Tillandsia X Victoria M. B. Foster hyb. nov.
(Tillandsia ionantha X T. brachycaulos) Type No. 2896 (U.S. National Herbarium)
(Not held in US, probably never sent! – Butcher Nov 2010)
This new hybrid was made in March 1943; it matured and flowered for the first time in 1954. In all its characters it resembles a king- size T. ionantha and shows none of the features of its paternal plant T. brachycaulos, except that it has a slight trace of a scape, although it is not visible nor evident as in T. brachycaulos. In every other feature, however, it is just a giant sized T. ionantha.

In flower this new hybrid measures from five to six inches to the top of its flowers. All the leaves turn to a luscious cerise pink crowned with its many purple "candle" flowers in the center. Few Tillandsias, when in flower, command any greater admiration than T. ionantha; multiply this display many times and you have T. X Victoria in all its glory.

There are few records of Tillandsia hybrids. Principally, I feel sure, because of the long lapse of time between the date when the cross is made until the final maturity of the new hybrid; I doubt if this waiting period is rarely less than ten years and with some species it could be fifteen to twenty years.

This was my first success in hybridizing Tillandsias, so, it is with much pleasure that this new hybrid, Tillandsia X Victoria is named in honor of Miss Victoria Padilla, the enthusiastic and indispensable secretary of The Bromeliad Society:”

The accompanying photo shows a plant three times as wide as high and suggests a width of about 30cm. It would have been a great sight for such a large plant.

Margaret’s LARGE ‘Victoria’ from New Zealand (plant 30 cm high x 25 cm diam) suggested links to Muriel Waterman who was probably the first real Bromeliad grower in New Zealand and she did have lots of correspondence with Mulford. This could easily be the source of this plant but we are unable to prove this. Nobody in New Zealand seems to be growing this large form, and medium sized ones seem to prevail coming from various old sources where the trails go cold. Size may be large purely because the plant does not get the trigger to flower and it just grows and grows. Conversely, Margaret’s plant seems to flower regularly!

Are we dealing with unreported remakes by unknown hybridists of T. ionantha x brachycaulos? I believe this is the case. We do know that in 1960 Dr Richard Oeser in Germany did this cross because he sent seed to Olwen Ferris in Australia. In the same period he also sent seed of Neoregelia hybrids AND he also sent seed to the USA from the same crossings. Therefore seed from this remake of ‘Victoria’ could well have got to the USA.
In any event the seeds sent to Australia did germinate and seedlings were distributed. The records in 1982 show that these could have been sold as either ‘Victoria’ or ‘Victoria Oeser’. The use of the epithet cv Richard Oeser was recorded because it was unknown at the time as to how it differed from ‘Victoria’. These days the use of cv is taboo because you cannot have a cultivar of a cultivar.
Relative sizes supplied by Margaret Paterson are as follows:

Plant	Height	Width
‘Victoria’ remake by Paterson	19 cm	17 cm
‘Victoria’ “Dr Oesser"	12 cm	13 cm
‘Victoria’ from Olwen	16 cm	14 cm

All colour the same vivid red at flowering.

We know of at least one other remake in Australia by Neville Ryan that also seems to be about medium size. If we look at what is to offer in the USA at BirdRock, Rainforest Flora and Tropiflora they are also offering medium sized plant suggesting remakes, or the alleged natural hybrid, rather than offsets from Foster’s original.

This suggests to me that we should delete ‘Richard Oeser’ from the BCR and note the entry for ‘Victoria’ that several remakes have been done where the only difference seems to be size ranging from 13 cm to 30cm diameter, and under the current ICNCP rules they can all share the same cultivar name.