Prior description:

This ‘green form’ of Tillandsia edithae isn’t really green. It’s a form with more adpressed trichomes, giving the plant a more glabrous, less fuzzy, silvery appearance. In fact, in the summer here in Florida, the ‘silver form’ tends to get a bit of algae on the trichomes from the high humidity, giving it an actual green appearance.

Anyway, the ‘green form’ is different enough to warrant a cultivar name to distinguish it from the more typical, silver form. Other than that, the bloom and all aspects of growth are about the same, the leaves are perhaps a bit stiffer and a bit more compact but nearly the same as the silver form. Both are beautiful caulescent plants with short, broadly triangular, silvery-gray leaves and a stunning red-flowered inflorescence.

Native of Bolivia, they live a lithophytic existence on sheer rock cliffs, hanging in massive cascades. Care-free to grow, when mounted in a pendant fashion, they freely produce offsets along the old portions of their stems, soon forming large attractive clusters.

Note that in the second photo, both forms are there for comparison, even though it is hard to tell the apart in the photo. In life it is much easier!

*Recently (May 2024) renamed to T. iglari

Peter Tristram from Australia examined formerly, T. edithae 'Green Clone', and determines the genetic sequencing if different from the other species edithae. Thus naming this variety its own species, Tillandsia iglari.

This species has a very bulbous base and twisty leaves tapering to a thread-fine tip. The plants are a sort of an olive-drab to brown color, with hundreds of tiny red specks. In bloom, it produces a spike with short branches of a pink to lavender color. Mature plants can vary in size from four to twelve inches. Native from Mexico to Panama, in forested locations from sea level to 6,000 feet. Grow on the shady and moist side. In nature you never see this plant as a single specimen. Naturally growing in clusters, sometimes numbering hundreds of plants, this simple little Tillandsia becomes a spectacular specimen.

A robust form of Tillandsia funckiana that we got from a collector in Colombia.  We are not sure of the exact origin although most of the similar clones come from the Andes of Venezuela near the Colombia border.  The stems grow to 10 inches or so and have needle thing leaves to just over an inch long.  The leaves curve upward but this form is quite different from v. recurvifolia.  The overall color is green with a coating of silver trichomes and a red blush in strong light and at anthesis.  This form is like all others; a cliff dweller that forms cascading clusters.

A small species with twisted foliage and fragrant light blue flowers. Native of Bolivia and Argentina where it grows in small clusters in the arid scrublands. The leaves are silvery, terete and somewhat kinked. Its inflorescence is like that of a streptocarpa, with light blue fragrant flowers. Grow bright and airy for best results.