"Uncle Derek Says"

Hohenbergiopsis guatemalensis

"In 1996 I was able to investigate a plant by this name that had been imported to Australia. The branches were not as strobilate as I had wished and the bracts did not seem hairy enough. The petals were that odd colour suggesting that a yellow flowered plant may be the other parent. The petals had no appendages. I even toyed with the idea that one of the parents could be the yellow flowering plant pictured in the BSI Journal 1982 p106 with photo by Eloise Beach but decided this just had to be a colour printing error. The fact that Hohenbergiopsis differs from Hohenbergia by NOT having petal appendages meant I was on the right track. Hohenbergia has petal appendages and so too do most of the sub-genera of Aechmea so what was the other possible parent? In bi-generic hybrids (man-made!) no-one has bothered to check whether petal appendages are caused by a dominant gene or not, so that avenue was not worth pursuing. So I was left with a plant that I thought doubtful but could think up no logical alternative. In 1998 I put my photograph on this Web site for all to see and waited for an avalanche of queries. In May 2000 Charles Dills queried my photograph because it did not agree with a plant he had with the same name with a capitate inflorescence. This was agreed by Walter Till and Eric Gouda to be THE Hohenbergiopsis guatemalensis and it may well be the NORMAL inflorescence for this species. Is it the abnormal inflorescence that is shown in the BSI Journal? These are shown here to show my dilemma. If you do have a plant by this name and it flowers like that in the drawing in the BSI Journal would you please send us a photograph."

Photo Credits:
Derek Butcher
Eloise Beach, BSI Journal 1982, p106
Robert W. Read, BSI Journal 1982, p106