Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads For Novices and Addicts - October 2014, 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Once again nothing exciting to report just more re-potting done with still much more to do.

Teresa – I’ll bet you thought you’d finally got your plant of Bill. nutans variegated and right from where you’d least expected it to come from. I guess you’ll just have to wait and see what it turns out to be. Do you have a pic.?

Brian – It seems like we have similar taste as Shirley’s No.1 Pic was the one I liked also.

Pleased to hear that at least we’ve been able to sort out the identity of you Neo. ‘Pemiento’ and you were able to confirm it with a bit of detective work on the name tag.

I thought you’d like the 22 plants I mentioned on the BCR; there are some amazing colour combinations there and it makes us wonder just where it will all end. One thing for sure though, I’ll bet Chester Skotak will still be playing a big part in the process years from now as he seems to be the “Guru” who’s leading the field in this area of fantastic colours.

Regarding your Till. tectorum, I’m sorry but I’m not a Tilly grower and can’t advise you from my own knowledge, however to took this as an opportunity to do a bit of detective work and see what I could find out.

Firstly I found there are four different forms listed on the FCBS Photo Index list of Tillandsia species at location 517. One of these forms is listed as Till. tectorum forma gigantean which as the name suggests is a large form and could be the same as the one the lady in our society exhibited at the show. Incidentally, she did tell me that she’s had her particular plant “for years” so that may also have contributed to the large size.

Now to get back to your plant; I couldn’t find any listed as Till. Tectorum enanum on the species listing, although I noticed that three of these have had name changes over the years (Taxonomists love to do this) which prompted another possible line of investigation under listed hybrids. Once again no Till. Tectorum enanum is listed.

I then decided to see if it was listed under just Till. Enanum; again “no dice”, but there was one listed as Till. Enano which started me wondering if the name on your label was misspelled so I looked up this one, and as the man on the TV says, “that’s not all folks” and I found the following:

Name: Tillandsia 'Enano'
Remarks: A form of ?T. tectorum sold by Krauspe in the 1980's as enanum minor. Plant thriving in AU. Petals totally blue.

So to me it seems likely that your plant is possibly Till. ‘Enano’ which would have been sold as Till. Tectorum enanum minor and somehow the “minor” has been omitted from the name as sometimes happens.

All you have to do now is wait until it flowers and see what colour the petals are. The name enanum minor suggests a smallish plant but on the other hand there may also be just a plain Till. Enanum which isn’t listed, who knows. The fact that your plant still has the name enanum only suggests that the previous grower wasn’t aware of any name changes and it’s still being sold under the old name.

You also ask, “Should it be on a backing board of some sort? Maybe the gal mesh might not be the best thing for it to lay against”.

All I can tell you is that any I’ve ever seen down here are usually mounted on cork or wood of some kind. As for the mesh, I have found that the zinc in newish gal mesh will burn the foliage of Neo’s and Aechmeas where they touch it, however I have seen pictures of Tillandsia nurseries in U.S. where they are grown just laying on benches of wire netting so maybe this has weathered and the zinc is no longer active. To be on the safe side I think if it were my plant I would mount it on cork or wood which we know is harmless.

Today I’ll again finish with some random pic’s from around the yard. Pic.1 is Ae. ‘Pie in the Sky’, it’s quite a handy little brom with its variegated leaves in two shades of green. When the inflorescence first appears it looks like an orange coloured cone, then the yellow flowers open and when they die it appears as an orange coloured cone once more and stays this way for some months. Pic.2 is a plant named Neo.’Blue Blood’ (even though it isn’t blue). It’s probably wrongly named as it’s nothing like the one on the BCR, so probably another NOID. Pic.3 shows a couple of Neo.’Rosy Morn’ pups just starting to colour while Pic. 4 shows the variations possible within the same grex in these two hybrids from a cross made by Sue from Neo. ‘Marble Throat’ x ‘Prinsler’. Pic.5 is Neo. ‘Catlan’s Leopard’ a beautiful Neo. concentrica hybrid..

All the best, Nev.