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Tillandsia scaposa has less dense clusters of foliage and a branched inflorescence, but is otherwise much the same as T. ionantha.
It seems to be more tolerant of excess moisture than the latter species (it was formerly thought of as a variety of T. ionantha), but it may just be a matter of chance. Werner Ruh says: "T. ionantha var. scaposa L.B.Smith, 1941, differs from the type by a very loose foliage as well as a short scape and a branched inflorescence." Bromeliads in Australia say: "Formerly T. ionantha var scaposa, then "tangled" with T. kolbii, now species status T. scaposa. Now considered NOT the same as T. kolbii. Derek Butcher ..."40 years ago everybody knew what a T. ionantha looked like and if you were lucky you may have had a T. ionantha var. scaposa, which needed more shade than your tough old T. ionantha and came from Guatemala. The other difference was the inflorescence, which is nestled in the leaf rosette for T. ionantha but raised for the variety scaposa. T. scaposa has an interesting botanic life. It started off as being a variety of T. ionantha and Renate Ehlers dragged it up to species status. I am prepared to treat it as variable. It is said that flowers are laxly spirally arranged which to me suggests they can appear to be distichous on occasion." " |
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| 2nd July 2006 | ||
