Tillandsia pucaraensis
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Tillandsia pucaraensis
Species from Pucara in Northern Peru.
| Len Colgan 02/10. |
Ken Woods 01/11. |
This plant has recently been under the spot-light by the Tillandsia Discussion Group.
Here is Len's summary of discussions. See also UD notes on fcbs -
"For those not familiar with the story so far, you should go to the fcbs web site. Then click on “Uncle Derek Says” followed by the T. pucaraensis/guelzii link. Alternatively, you can find T. pucaraensis in the photo gallery, and click on the “Uncle Derek Says” link above it.
Basically, there is a plant that Pam Koide had on her list some time ago, which happens to be identical to a huge clump hanging in Collector’s Corner. Pam had it labelled T. pucaraensis because Renate Ehlers could only come up with that possible name when Pam asked her. However, we all agree that it has nothing to do with T. pucaraensis which comes from northern Peru, and so the mystery plant is still a mystery. I had obtained a plant many years ago from Lydia Köhres as T. pucaraensis which matched perfectly a plant with the same name that I bought from Paul Isley. They both flowered, but the one from Isley subsequently died. The one from Lydia gave a small offset that has grown very slowly, and is still only a fraction of the size of its parent.
By the way, you will see in Derek’s article that there is a possibility that T. pucaraensis and T. guelzii are synonymous despite contradictions in history.
Anyway, when I visited Lydia Köhres 18 months ago, she had some more of this species and I purchased another one. It is currently in flower (photo of spike attached; that is the plant behind). I do not know definitely if this is a remnant of Lydia’s earlier group or a fresh supply, but I got the impression it was the latter.
Personally, I am confident this is the true species. Whether or not T. guelzii should be deleted by being synonymous is not for me to say because I have never claimed to own it. What the plant from Pam Koide and Collector’s Corner might be is unknown, and how it came to be in both locations is intriguing – perhaps Collector’s Corner imported it even earlier from Pam? In any case, this mystery plant is easy to grow but quite uninspiring."
Updated 07/02/11
