Peter Tristram 09/13.

Len Colgan, from an old slide.

Peter Tristram ... "The only hope of this species ever becoming more common is to grow it from seed as it is very slow and gives few pups when mature. The seedlings do adventitiously pup, though, like many of the Andean species. Chris and I have some from Holm (assuming they are true), but they are still small. Unfortunately I have never bloomed 2 clones together."
Len Colgan - "From my old slides taken more than 20 years ago. The stem of the inflorescence and the bracts seem greener and plumper, while the pollen is most conspicuous. Mind you, the yellow shading around the throat of each flower in your close-up does indicate a quantity of pollen also.
My remaining plants of this species do still look like this, while the plants themselves seem a little greyer and more succulent. But it remains one of my favourite tillandsias."

Peter Tristram 10/14

George Nieuwenhoven 11/15

Chris Larson 10/19

Chris Larson ... "This one is from a group of seedlings from Holm as T. arequitae some 10 years ago. Peter Tristram was questioning ět before it flowered."

Tillandsia arequitae (Andre) Andre ex Mez, DC. Monogr. Phan. 9: 814. 1896.
Tillandsia xiphioides var arequitae Andre, Revue Hort. 65: 156, pl. 1893.
Desc from S&D p813
Plant flowering to 4 dm high, often subpulvinate; roots present; stem conspicuous, usually branching several times, decumbent for most of its length, ends of the branches ascending.
Leaves many, erect to recurved, densely polystichous, not secund, to 20 cm long, but usually about 10 cm, covered with spreading cinereous scales;
Sheaths obscure, densely imbricate, making the stem appear very stout;
Blades narrowly triangular, at¬tenuate to the abruptly acute pungent apex, 15 mm wide, stout, rigid, carinate below, complicate toward apex.
Scape erect, conspicuous, ca 1 dm long, usually exceeding the leaves;
Scape-bracts densely imbricate, narrowly elliptic, acute, greenish stramineous, at least the lower ones lepidote.
InfIorescence lanceolate, acute, complanate, to 10 cm long, densely 6-12-flowered; Rhachis flexuous, angled, narrowly alate, glabrous.
Floral bracts densely imbricate and concealing the rhachis, 3 times as long as the internodes, narrowly triangular-ovate, acute, 25-40 mm long, exceeding the sepals, rather thin, glabrous, slightly nerved, greenish with stramineous nerveless margins, ecarinate;
Flowers subsessile.
Sepals linear-lanceolate, obtuse, 21 mm long, submembranaceous, glabrous, equal, free;
Petals ca 5 cm long, white, odorless, the claw linear, blade spreading, suborbicular, ca 18 mm wide, obscurely crenate or entire;
Stamens elongate, barely included or exserted from the throat of the corolla, shorter than the pistil;
Anthers linear, 7 mm long;
Ovary prismatic.
Type. Andre K-320 (holotype K; isotypes F, GH, NY), Cerro de Arequita, Minas, Lavalleja, Uruguay, 1890.
DISTRIBUTION. Saxicolous and epiphytic, southeastern Uruguay.
URUGUAY. LAVALLEJA, Minas: Arequita, l5 Apr 1906, Osten 4684 (MVM); cult. Nov 1948, Legrand 3136 (MVM); without exact locality, Arechavaleta 2613 bis (B).