Chris Larson, Michael Ferenczi andPeter Tristram at entrance to nursery

THERE WILL BE NO MEETING IN FEBRUARY

BROMELI ANAPUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK BROMELIAD SOCIETY1

(visit our website www.nybromeliadsociety.org)

February, 2016 Vol. 53, No. 2

COLUMBIA - 2014by Chris Larson

(This article was excerpted and condensed from the October-November 2015 issue of the Newsletter of theBromeliad Society of Victoria, based in Sydney, Australia. When I sat down to start writing this February issue,the early morning temperature was 10E F. and the wind chill factor was well below zero. I thought it would bewarming to take you on a brief trip to Columbia where bromeliads grow in heat and humidity. Most of the photosbelow were taken by Chris who is the former President of the Victoria Bromeliad Society; some may have beentaken by Michael Ferenczi or Peter Tristram. Editor)

In the past few years I’ve had a few goodproposals to venture over to Central or South Americawhere I could look at plants in the wild again - the lasttime was in 1998. With the kids growing older I couldsee the chances improve to go on a plant missionagain, this time to Columbia withPeter Tristram from Repton (aknowledgeable and experiencedcollector - Ed) and MichaelFerenczi from Sydney. ThoughColumbia has always been ofinterest, it is a bit different to myusual travels as I’ve alwayspreferred xeric (drier) areas, whereas Colombia has a greaternumber of mesic (wetter) areas.

After talking for a few yearsto Bruce Dunstan about his travelsin Columbia, we decided to contactthe driver/guide that he used onmany of his trips. This made it easy,as he knew where many of theplants we wanted to see were. Healso would provide the vehicle, andhe knew which areas were safer. Unfortunately, 10days before we were to leave, he had a heart attack,and 3 days before we got there he had successfulmajor heart surgery.

Our problems were less severe, but we had to

sort out a major problem: we had no vehicleorganized and not much of a plan - and our departurewas only a week away.

We had planned to visit Bromelias deColumbia, the nursery of Franz Gruber and his

children, so we contacted Franz tohelp work out a trip plan and wearranged for a driver/guide, Aldo,and a guide, Sergio who knewabout many of the plants of theseareas though they were notbromeliad specialists. So the threeof us flew into Bogota, Columbia tomeet the driver.

After a good night’s sleepwe went into the city to organizephone cards, a nightmare that tooka few days before we got them towork. We also got to walk aroundthe beautiful old part of Bogota andgo through the Gold Museum, oneof the most impressive museumsI’ve ever visited.

We had our plan to visit theBromelias de Columbia nursery and we had Aldo todrive us, so we went off to the town of Fusagasuga(hereinafter called Fusa), a little over an hour fromBogota, and met with our other guide, Sergio. Ourhotel on the first night

Guzmania conifera

Neoregelia ‘Perfection’ is a sport of Neo. ‘Fosperior’ withmostly stable variegation. It was named and produced byBert Foster. N. ‘Fosperior’ was made and registered byMulford Foster in 1978. Its parentage is not known. Theinset photo is by Frank Sherman, from the BCR. Editor

Tillandsia cacticola

Tillandsia duratii seedlings - see note on p. 4

Bromeliana -2- February, 2016

was one of theworst hotels I haveever stayed in. Itwas clean, but it was on a major road with thesound of the trucks roaring past all night.The breakfastrepeated on me forthe next few dayscausing me muchs t o m a c hdiscomfort. Sergioand Franz came byat breakfast to takeus to the nursery,

which we expected would contain collectors’ plants,European tissue culture plants and popular plants inthe commercial trade.

However, we found a great range of plantsfrom around the world. The nursery was far ahead ofits time in recycling the water it used. It was veryclean and the plants were impressively healthy. Themultitude of plants was amazing. They had evenselected superior clones of Guzmania conifera withbranched inflorescences and had vegetativelypropagated these. (See photo above.)

Neoregelia ‘Fosperior Perfection’. A greathybrid which was once reasonably common inMelbourne 20-30 years ago. It was great to see themhere again – though so much larger than I remember

which is a result of the tropical climate.

Tillandsia cacticola is one of the mostspectacular and easy tillandsias to grow. Franz had anumber of forms, small, medium and large, and somewith no stem and some semi-caulescent. He even hadone with white bracts. Of course T. cacticola comesfrom Peru, but it grows perfectly in the nursery whichis only an hour away from Bogota, at an elevation of1700 meters (a little more than a mile up). They useT.cacticola, along with T.straminea and others, in thecut flower market.

(Note that the yellow petals of the flowershave a purple tinged apex. They are similar to theflower petals of Tillandsia straminea shown in theinsets on page 3. But the flowers of T. cacticola arenot fragrant, whereas the flowers of T. straminea arehighly perfumed. Editor)

Aechmea chantinii cultivar

Vriesea ospinae var. gruberi cultivar by Franz Gruber

Tillandsia straminea - the left inset is its flower The right inset is the flower of T. cacticola

Tilandsia elongata and T.dyeriana at the La Bromelia

Bromeliana -3- February, 2016

Vriesea ospinae var gruberi with a difference.Franz had cultivated a few different clones of thisplant and this was my favourite. Only 12” (30 cm)across with very nice markings, it was a stunner.Franz was also very keen to get his hands on theAustralian clones such as Vriesea ‘Tiger Tim’ and V.‘Smudge Grub’. (There are clones of V. ‘Tiger Tim’ thatare similar to this plant. Editor)

Tillandsia straminea with a difference. Thisspecies is highly variable. This form is a nice addit-ion to my collection; the deep color of the bracts isquite unusual.

Aechmea chantinii. One of the severalamazing forms of A. chantinii grown at the nursery.This one had lovely foliage, with less definedmarkings than some of the others. I’d love one of each– but it is of no use as they would not look like thishere in Australia anyway. It is better to put the pictureon my wall and leave the chantinii to those living inthe tropics.

We did a couple of shorttrips from Franz’s place; onto the mountains above thetree line. These were bleeklandscapes with beautifulnative species, including afew Puyas. I was sufferingbadly from the stomach bugI had picked at the hotel inFusa on the secondmorning. Franz thought itwas his driving and Icouldn’t convince himotherwise - but it didn’tslow him down.

We also went on aquick trip to a loweraltitude...where we spotteda large, unknown Aechmeasp.

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OFFICERS DIRECTORSPresident..........Mimi Gussow Cynthia PercarpioVice-Pres..David McReynolds Victoria Ehrlich Treasurer.......Barbara Lagow Nadine BakerEditor...................Herb Plever

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Tillandsia flexuosa - inset photo by HP

Tillandsia fendleri

Bromeliana -4- January, 2016

We also foundour first T. flexuosa plants which was prevalentgrowing near T. elongata under 1,200 meters. Wewould see these 2 species regularly over the followingthree weeks, but at this time the excitement of eventhe most common Colombian bromeliads was stillfresh. The unusual twisting shape and silver stripeswith a nice spike has made T. flexuosa a much soughtafter plant. It is difficult to grow in southern(Australian) climes as it needs to be heated in thewinter. (It grows well in an apartment. Ed)

Tillandsia fendleri was seen at mediumaltitudes throughout our travels. Unfortunately, thisspecies can only be propagated from seed or from

adventitious pups (grassy pups similar to those foundon Alcantareas) as they seem to die after floweringwithout producing pups.(Chris Larson indicated that he would report later on therest of his travels in Columbia, and we look forward toreading about them. Editor) “

Note for Seedlings (see page 2)(There are many hundreds of seedlings of Tillandsaduratii which is in short supply. If only we could get manylarge growers and, especially, tissue culturists to createhundreds of seedlings or tissue cultures of many broms weused to grow and which are now no longer available - suchas Tillandsia atroviridipetala, T. heubergeri, T.kautzkyi, T. reclinata, T. sprengliana to name just afew. Also, there are many beautiful plants that areextremely difficult to grow out of habitat, such as T.biflora, many Lindmanias, Navias and Racinaeas. Itwould be of great benefit to horticultural science and tobrom growers if these plants could be tissue cultured inhabitat and then produced and selected out by competentnurserymen to adapt to our conditions. Editor)

2016 DUES are due and payable now. Single andjoint memberships are $25.00; the domesticsubscription rate for BROMELIANA is $8.00 and anoverseas subscription is $12.00. Please mail yourcheck payable to N.Y. Bromeliad Society to BarbaraLagow, 54 West 74th Street, #603, N.Y.C. 10023. Ifyou have not paid your dues when you read this,please write a dues check and mail it so we don’t haveto send you a reminder.