Tillandsia exserta features a unique and slender shape, with white, arching leaves and a red inflorescence with violet flowers. This species grows in the drier, hotter conditions of Mexico. A unique species of Tillandsia.

This plant from Bolivia has a good possibility of being a new species. However, for now, we are offering it as a ’giant form’ of vernicosa, a species to which it is most similar. The leaves are very stiff and many in an 8 to 12 inch rosette, dark greenish bronze with a beautiful multi-branched inflorescence of pinkish orange with small white flowers. The colorful inflorescence lasts for several months. The regular form of this plant is 4 to 6 inches and by comparison this form is a true giant.

*VIPP plants are small size, not in bud

This plant was imported in the early 1980s from Guatemala and came in mixed with Tillandsia caput-medusae. When this plant flowered it was obvious to us that it was a hybrid and we consulted with Harry Luther who agreed that it was likely a caput-medusae x brachycaulos natural hybrid. Until 2013 we had been growing this plant under that name.

I recently submitted a photo of it to Derek Butcher and Geoffrey Lawn of the Hybrid Registry and Derek wrote me back saying “You have the original T. brachycaulos var multiflora see attached. However the botanists decided it was a natural hybrid which I maintain should be in alpha order because you do not know mother thus brachycaulos x caput-medusae. So we are in a quandary.

Under ICBN rules your plant has a ‘name’. I am suggesting we stretch the rules and under the ICNCP rules call your plant ‘Zacapa‘ linking it to the Lyman Smith variety and thus the Field herb specimen.” And so we are. This plant has grown much larger under cultivated conditions and maintains a nice coloration. A choice plant.

A John Arden hybrid of (jalisco-monticola x capitata). A tough and showy plant with leathery reddish leaves in a symmetrical, very leafy rosette. The inflorescence is a tight cluster of many dark orange branches in a capitate head with long scape bracts exceeding the branches. Very long lasting in color. A heavy plant, tough and sturdy, easy to grow. Grows well mounted or potted in a fast draining mix with good aeration. 

A beautiful caulescent plant with short, broadly triangular, silvery-gray leaves and a stunning red-flowered inflorescence. A native of Bolivia where it lives a lithophytic existence on sheer rock cliffs, hanging in massive cascades. Care-free to grow, when mounted in a pendant fashion it freely produces offsets along its old stem, soon forming large attractive clusters.

Our stock came from a collection we made in 1993 in Bolivia. The excitement still lingers when I think of my fist encounter with the species in the wild. We had been traveling the rugged canyons that lay between ridge after ridge of the Cordillera de los Andes on Bolivia’s rugged and desolate eastern frontier.

On our satellite maps the terrain appeared to have been clawed by a giant jaguar, leaving parallel grooves hundreds of miles long etched deeply into the altiplano. We were weary from several weeks travel having seldom enjoyed a bed or hot meal. It remains a mystery why in such a relatively rich habitat for Tillandsias such as this, that one can travel for many miles and endless hours and not see a single plant! But on this dusty day our luck changed.

In a deep gorge where the escarpment walls seemed to rise and close in, causing dark shadows across the valley floor, we came into an incredible sight. Our first hint was an isolated cliff, across a muddy stream, that had a small colony of a caulescent Tillandsia. Crossing the stream, a break in the monotony of the day, I carried collecting pole and camera towards the cliff. Distance deceives among the stone monoliths of these haunting canyons and as the ‘bushes’ at the cliff base became large trees at my approach, so also did the Tillandsias disappear into the forest canopy.

Reaching the base of the cliff, I couldn’t even see the plants that lured me in the first place, as they were easily over a hundred feet overhead obscured by the canopy of the forest. However, with adrenaline coursing as it does when victory or discovery is in the wind, we drove onward to our reward. Not over a mile further on, the cliffs, which towered hundreds of feet tall, were covered with Tillandsias as far as the eye could see. Approaching this time we discovered that our long awaited prize was Tillandsia edithae!

Buy one now and save the bone-jarring, dust-eating, dangerous trip to Bolivia’s eastern desert.

Something of a mystery. We had this plant for years labeled as (ionantha x brachycaulos) which is the opposite cross of ‘Victoria‘ but it was quite different looking. Recently we examined this plant in bloom more closely and it appears that it is more likely a hybrid of (ionantha x caput-medusae) based on the leaf texture and inflorescence structure. Possibly a natural hybrid, it superficially resembles a giant ionantha to about 8 inches tall, with stiff, silvery leaves arranged in a recurving upright vase shape. The inflorescence is a short pink scape with blue flowers nested in the center. The whole plant blushes slightly reddish when in bloom. 

A showy hybrid of (capitata ‘Red’ x ionantha v. stricta) by Bill Timm. A nice plant about 6 to 8 inches tall that strongly resembles the ionantha parent with many narrow leaves in an upright, flaring, rosette. Green until blooming, when it blushes bright red.

This plant is an apparent natural hybrid but we are reasonably certain that it is a cross of (riohondoensis x ionantha) that came in with a shipment of the former from Guatemala some years ago. We have been propagating it ever since. The plant has many narrow, velvety leaves in an upright vase shaped rosette. It can grow to over ten inches tall and wide with leaves about a half inch wide tapering to a point. The inflorescence is a capitate head of very tight branches on a short scape bearing long leaf-like bracts. The bracts blush pink at anthesis along with the upper whorl of leaves.

Overall the plant is silvery with a heavy coating of trichomes. The leaves are soft and graceful. We are naming this plant in honor of our dear friend Ruby Ryde of Australia. An avid bromeliad collector of many years with her late husband Keith and who has for years faithfully sent us a beautiful calendar of Australian nature each December. She is our ‘Calendar Girl’ and we are proud to have her as our friend!

Tillandsia usneoides  This is the famed ‘Spanish Moss’ of the romantic south. Gracing stately trees from Virginia to Argentina, its is a ubiquitous presence in much of the southern U.S. and especially here in Florida.

The form we sell is our native form, long silvery strands, fluffy and fresh, with fragrant green flowers when it blooms. We grow some in greenhouses, but much of our stock is harvested in the many trees right on Tropiflora property. We clean it of twigs and leaves and only rarely treat it with insecticides for shipment, by request.

Forget about the red bug stories you may have heard about ‘Spanish Moss’, it’s a myth. Great for that special tropical look in your trees, for use with reptiles, as decorative mulch on indoor plants and more. Keep in a breezy, partially shaded place for best results and water well once a week. Feed occasionally if kept indoors.

Note that the photo below is a clump just over 3 feet long and is about a pound (actually just under).

*PLEASE NOTE - We are no longer allowed to ship this item to Japan

A fairly newly resurrected species related to compressa and fasciculata, native to the State of Veracruz in Mexico. The type locality is near the town of Hidalgotitlán in the seasonally dry, broad leaf forests of the eastern Isthmus of Tehuantepec. A medium sized plant to about 20 inches tall with narrow, tapering leaves in an upright vase shape. The inflorescence is stunning, uprightly branched and bright yellow. An outstanding plant without any special cultural requirements other than typical for Tillandsias.

A natural hybrid of Till. argentina x tenuifolia. A clustering plant with very stiff, dark gray leaves tapering to a sharp point. The inflorescence is a lanceolate scape of pink with lavender flowers with an open corolla. Overall the plant takes more characteristics from the argentina parent.

One of the all-time favorite, easy to grow, beautiful Tillandsias, from Chiapas, Mexico. A pinkish-silver plant with wide, leathery, scurfy leaves in a broadly spreading open rosette. Can grow to 18 inches, but usually is much smaller.

The inflorescence, which can last in color for a year, is an inflated, sometimes branched, pink spike. A cliff-dweller from the dramatic canyons of Chiapas, it best kept mounted in bright light, and fed frequently.