In 1975 Wolfram Schultze-Motel of the Botanical Gardens of Berlin-Dahlem (In Bot. Jahrb. Syst: 96 . 423 - 426 (1975) resurrected A. chlorantha from synonymy to a sub-species of A. brevifolia.
In 1983 (In Bromelien Studien XIII) Werner Rauh named A. lotteae.
In 1987 (In Bromelien Studien XIX) Werner Rauh and Lotte Hromradnik described A. scapigera and published a new key for the 4 species but ignored the work of Schultze-Motel.
The fact that we now had an Abromeitiella with a scape caused problems because it was a link to Deuterocohnia!
In 1992 Michael Spencer and Lyman Smith merged Abromeitiella with Deuterocohnia (Bradea Vol VI, #16 1992) but they too overlooked the work of Schultze-Motel!
In 1996 while in California I had a very enjoyable few days in Los Angeles with Dutch Vandervort's parents and, of course, quizzed Dutch about his "Terrestrials" I was able to become the grateful owner of a Deuterocohnia lotteae which took 3 years to become acclimatised to Adelaide conditions and flower. The other plant I acquired became a discussion because Dutch called it D. brevifolia and it was different to the D. brevifolia we grew in Australia.
In my PPC days (Pre Personal Computer) I had Peter Franklin of Raymond Terrace in New South Wales on Brom-l and he was able to report that Dr. Walter Till had pointed out the existence of the Schultze-Motel paper. This started me on snail-mail with Walter and his view was that there were clear distinctions between the two sub-species. However, it would need more research and checking of herbaria specimens. They possibly differ at species level rather than sub-species and there may be links with the old 'pulvinata'. He was also able to confirm that the "Aussie" D. brevifolia was true but large because of optimal growing conditions (6 cm diameter) whereas the "Yankee" D. brevifolia I had got from Dutch was really the subspecies chlorantha.
Let us now read part of Schultze-Motel's paper in 'my' English ;
"Mez (1935: 278) shows 3 species in the genus, namely A. brevifolia (Griseb.) Castell: A. chlorantha (Haum)Mez and A. lorentziana (Mez) Castell. (bzw A. abstrusa Castell). This varies from the decision made by Smith (1967:163 ) to make A. chlorantha a synonym of A. brevifolia. In doing so he said "I was unable to distinguish more than two species of Abromeitiella. Mez's distinction of a small number of leaf spines for A. chlorantha collapses on examination of luxuriant live material like that of Marnier-Lapostolle that shows great variation of leaf spines on a single plant. Rauh (1973) confirmed this action."
In the Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden A. brevifolia and A. chlorantha have been growing for many years in cultivation. Growing side by side the plants can clearly be seen as distinct by the teeth on the leaves as well as the growth habit. A. brevifolia is vigorous and possesses entire leaf edges or toothed at the base. A. chlorantha, on the other hand is more dainty and shows that the leaf edge overall is clearly toothed. ---- It is feasible that the plant Smith mentioned was a hybrid.---- Following Mez (1935:279) A. brevifolia comes from S. Bolivia and also from the Argentinian provinces of Juyuy, Salta, Tucuman and Catamarca whereas A. chlorantha's habitat is the province of Tucuman.
Clearly, Wolfram was not impressed with Lyman's summary dismissal of A. chlorantha!
Meanwhile, I had a friend Chris Larson from Melbourne who was doing a trip to NW Argentina and I asked him to keep an eye open for the smaller Deuterocohnia. He reported seeing many mounds (or polsters) of plants where individual plants in the same clump varied in size depending on shade etc. BUT he did find in one area very small plants which I was also lucky to acquire from him. Here the plants were only 3 cm in diameter and closer to Lyman Smith's interpretation.
So although I have never visited NW Argentina I soon got the impression of great variability in size. If Lyman Smith went so far as to treat A. chlorantha as a synonym of A. brevifolia how could he possibly treat A. lorentziana as distinct purely on the size of the plant!
My current interpretation of the situation can be explained in the following Key
| 1. | Petals | Red or reddish | lotteae) ) |
| Green or yellow-green | 2 | ||
| 2. | Inflorescence | With scape | scapigera |
| Without scape | 3 | ||
| 3. | Plant | To 5cm diameter, leaves shiny on top with a few scattered appressed trichomes and a few teeth on the edges | brevifolia ssp. brevifolia) ) ) |
| To 3cm diameter, leaves shiny on top with scattered patches of hairy trichomes and many bristly teeth on the edges | brevifolia ssp. chlorantha) ) |
||
| 5cm to 10cm diameter, leaves dull on the top with many small appressed trichomes and a few teeth at the edges | lorentziana) |
I do not know the validity of the Schultze-Motel paper in 1975 according to the ICBN rules but I do not believe ignoring it is the correct course of action. Perhaps Harry Luther is another one not aware of its existence because D. brevifolia ssp. chlorantha is not in the Binomials listing for 1998."