| "This all started because Keith Green of New Zealand sent me some photographs he wanted identified. Their names were Aechmea ecuadoriana, A. mulfordii, and A. eurycorymbus. I was aware of the probability of name errors and referred his queries to that Gravisian Guru Peter Franklin of Raymond Terrace, New South Wales. AND so the exchange of information began! | ) ) Aechmea mulfordii (was ecuadoriana) Photos by Keith Green |
In 1962 Lyman Smith named this genus to accommodate Gravisia fosteriana (Now Aechmea mulfordii) and it is a pity this name has not survived from the horticultural point of view. At least we would know what plants we were talking about in this most misnamed group.
In 1990 Harry Luther showed us how to distinguish five of this group in BSIJ #4 1990 pages 154 - 156. However, less than a year later in Selbyana we had a new species, namely Aechmea callichroma and an amendment to what had been thought to be Aechmea mulfordii. It is this information in Selbyana that Peter Franklin and myself have used to investigate the Aussie problems. Apart from us two, very little attention seems to have been made to these revelations, and plants are still cropping up with completely wrong names.
In BSIJ #1 1994 pages 17 - 19 there is more information on how Aechmea callichroma came into being.
We will now try to correct the situation. In our deliberations we must remember that Mulford Foster was busy hybridising these large Aechmeas in the 1960's and 1970's without keeping records. The size of these plants has meant that seed has been the preferred method of acquiring them, certainly from the Australian point of view and then they take 5 - 6 years to reach adulthood. The possibility of seed from hybrid plants must always be at the back of our minds.
Those of you who used Harry Luther's method of naming the species involved in the BSIJ would have been very frustrated because of the predominance of a plant he did not even mention, namely Aechmea callichroma. Let me introduce you to Franklin's Gravisian Law; "Call it Aechmea callichroma and you will be right 95% of the time!". It is not just a recent phenomenon because we can trace plants back to the 1980's in Australia. We feel sure that the proliferation of Aechmea callichroma would have also occurred in the USA even further back and it is strange that Harry Luther did not mention it in the BSIJ #4 1990. Perhaps he considered it to be a hybrid.
){kind=small}
In 1991 we have a detailed account by Robert Read and Harry Luther in Selbyana but this Journal is not as widely read as the BSI Journals and is probably the reason why this solution is not as well known as it should be.
It was found that some Aechmea mulfordii being grown by Ulrich Baensch in the Bahamas did not agree with the description by Lyman Smith, and Robert Read and Ulrich Baensch decided to describe a new species Aechmea callichroma. This plant has not been found in the wild which is surprising in view of what we have to show you. I quote from the comment under cultivation: "This species has been in cultivation for some time but because of considerable taxonomic confusion within this group, it has remained unrecognised as distinct. It has often been confused with Aechmea mulfordii as a result of a slightly distorted published illustration. The illustration of A. mulfordii published in the monograph by Smith and Downs (1979) exaggerates the elongation of the rhachis, and does not illustrate the fact that the spikes are strongly digitately congested into fascicles of much foreshortened spikes. Furthermore, in A. mulfordii the primary bracts equal or are only slightly shorter than the branches, while in the present species, the primary bracts only equal the sterile portion of the lower branches, and the spikelets are not fascicled."
Perhaps they were unaware of the almost total domination of plants in cultivation being A. callichroma. What is disturbing is that although Robert Read and Ulrich Baensch went to the trouble of distinguishing A. callichroma from A. mulfordii the picture in Blooming Bromeliads (1994) by Baensch page 66 of A. mulfordii is not typical of the amended interpretation of this species!
In the early 1980's an Aechmea rubens was imported to Australia from California and has since been identified as A. callichroma.
In Sept/Oct 1987 Aechmea mulfordii was offered as seed in the BSI list. This has turned out to be close to A. emmerichiae.
In Sept 1988 seed appeared in the BS Australia list as Aechmea ecuadoriana/aequatorialis which is a strange name when linked to this group because only Aechmea aquilega comes this far north. Where did the seed come from? Alas, we have no records so it must have come from seed or from a plant from the USA with this name. Now adult, the plants have flowered and can be linked to A. mulfordii.
In Nov 1988 we had another batch of seed on offer from the BSA under the name of A. eurycorymbus which have turned out to be A. callichroma. Again, we do not know how this got to Australia!
)
More recently, variegated forms of Aechmea mulfordii have been imported from the USA but all so far have turned out to be variegated forms of A. callichroma! Certainly Bullis Bromeliads of Florida were selling this plant as A. mulfordii and even produced a picture postcard to advertise the fact. Whether this error has been corrected is unknown. This is the picture postcard issued by Bullis Nurseries of an Aechmea mulfordii variegated which were available at that time at $65.00 each. Regrettably it seems to be an Aechmea callichroma. What are the links
between this and 'Peaches and Cream' allegedly an Aechmea rubens
variegated? see Bromeliad Cultivar Registry page 26.
No doubt there are other plants "out there" still with the names of Aechmea eurycorymbus, A. mulfordii, A. rubens, and other possible names too that are really A. callichroma. Why is this so? Well, in Bromeletter #3 1994 Peter Franklin pointed out that he knew that A. callichroma self-set seed readily which could be a reason for its dominance. However, most of his plants had turned out to be A. callichroma so he had very little to compare with.
)
)
Finally, if you are after an Aechmea eurycorymbus you may find it lurking under the name of Portea leptantha. This has certainly proven to be the case in Australia as warned by Harry Luther in BSIJ #4 1990 referred to previously. This reminds me that Luis Ariza crossed Portea leptantha with Aechmea mulfordii (if it was a true mulfordii!!) in 1972 and registered the hybrid as xPortemea 'Luis Ariza Julia' in 1978. At about the same time he also crossed Portea leptantha and Aechmea eurycorymbus and named it xPortemea 'Hilda Ariza' in 1982. Note that these are xPortemea and not Portea hybrids as indicated in Bromeliad Cultivar Registry page 349.
In the early 1980's I was growing seed called xPortemea 'Hilda Ariza' which would have come from the BSI seed bank but realised the futility of my action and destroyed my plants. Remember that any seed from this bigeneric would produce a range of seedlings from Portea leptantha on the one hand through to Aechmea eurycorymbus on the other. Could this be part of the reason that Aechmea eurycorymbus, Portea leptantha, and xPortmea 'Hilda Ariza' are confused with each other in cultivation? Beware the dangers of growing from seed from a known hybrid. Even more interesting is that if xPortemea 'Hilda Ariza' does set seed then it would be the first reported case of a bi-generic self-setting seed. If this unique event had in fact occurred, then it may well mean that the Gravisia group is very closely allied to Portea. However, more likely scenarios are that xPortemea 'Hilda Ariza' was pollinated by something else to give the seed or that xPortemea 'Hilda Ariza' was not a true bi-generic in the first place!
Any information you have of this group especially photos of A. discordiae, A. lanjouwii, or A. rubens would be appreciated.
Now that we have shown all the problems of naming in this group we will show how easy it is to identify these plants using the following Key with drawings to show what to look for. This is based on information from Selbyana 12 :54 - 67 1991 "
KEY TO GRAVISIA COMPLEX
| 1a. | Primary bract greatly exceeding the lowermost branch. | ||||||
| 2a. | Flowers in elongate, strobilate spikes with distinct but obscured axes; floral bracts with distinct hyaline margins; spikelets distinct | ) |
|||||
| 2b. | Flowers densely fascicled, lacking a distinct axis among the flowers; floral bracts without conspicuous hyaline margins; spikelets fascicled) ){kind=small} ) ){kind=small}
|
) |
|||||
| 1b. | Primary bract equaling or barely exceeding, to mostly shorter than the lowermost branch. | ||||||
| 3a. | Flowers of the upper portion of the inflorescence densely fascicled, lacking a distinct axis, those of the lower branches in several dense strobili with distinct axes)
|
) |
|||||
| 3b. | Flowers throughout the inflorescence with distinct, obvious axes connecting them in an open panicle or dense spikelets. | ||||||
| 4a. | Flower bracts (including spine-tips) mostly equal to or exceeding sepals | )
|
|||||
| 4b. | Flower bracts (including spine-tips) definitely shorter than the sepals. | ||||||
| 5a. | Inflorescence or its branches densely flowered; axes between flowers shorter than the ovary | ||||||
| 6a. | Primary bract equaling or shorter than the sterile portion of the rachis supporting the lowermost branch; flower bracts with distinct hyaline margins){kind=small} ){kind=small} ){kind=small}
|
)
|
|||||
| 6b. | Primary bract longer than the sterile portion of the rachis supporting the lowermost branch; flower bracts lacking distinct hyaline margins. | ||||||
| 7a. | Lowermost branches abruptly curved toward the apex of the inflorescence; primary bract reflexed; flower bracts 20-25 mm long, 17-20 mm wide) ){kind=small}
|
)
|
|||||
| 7b. | Lowermost branches more or less spreading; primary 15-20 mm long, 5-7 mm wide.) )
|
)
|
|||||
| 5b. | Inflorescence and branches diffusely branched, laxly flowered, axes between flowers about equal to or longer than the ovary
|
)
|