September 2008BSSF OFFICERS 2008

President Karl GreenVP Peter KouchalakosSec. Peggy Fisher Treas. Robert Meyer_________________DIRECTORS

Sandy Roth, Past President Judy Pagliarulo, ‘08 John Lazarus ‘07-‘08 Alan Herndon’08-‘09 Lori Weyrick ‘08-09

EditorsMoyna PrinceRobert C Meyer

Door Prize: Alan HerndonEducation: Nat DeLeonHospitality: Elaine MillsLibrary: Juan EspinosaMembership: Moyna PrinceMember Plant Sales: Antonio ArbelaezRaffle: Peter & Clara KouchalakosRefreshments: Patty GonzalezPhotos: Michael Schmale

What Who

SalesTable

Antonio Arbelaez

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008 , 7:30 PM

SPEAKER: Lynne Fieber and Michael Schmale withannual photo review of the Annual Show.

RAFFLE: Bob and Elaine Mills

FOOD TABLE: TBA

EDITOR’S NOTE:This is a special BromeliAdvisory. Included in thepages are many unique items which deserve moreattention than usually delivered by the BSSF’s kindand conscientious readers. They are:1. An account of the Nat DeLeon lecture2. Insightful review of 2008 World BromeliadConference by our very own Jose Donayre.3. Review of the Bus trip to three venues on the westcoast on August 9, 2008 by Moyna Prince – togetherwith photo. 4. Article about names by Alan Herndon. 5. Moyna Prince article about water rot6. Repeat VA Project article..

BromeliAdvisory, September 2008Page 2

In Case You Missed Itby Robert Meyer

On August 5, 2008, when the societynamed longtime member Steve Correaleas a Life Member, another longtimemember, Nat DeLeon, delivered a lectureabout the uniquities of mass production inthe bromeliad world, and how the massproducing world has affected hybrids –something to which Nat is a premierexpert.

For background, Nat elicited how until1980, planting bromeliads was basically asmall farm business operated in warmtemperate regions. Two events thereafteremerged that changed the smallcultivation world: (1) chemical use whichcontrolled the blooming’s timing; and (2)tissue culture which allowed massproduction. “These two things could makeit [bromeliad growing] go in anotherdirection.” Bromeliad retail establishmentsblossomed to become wholesale factories.

Nat’s little acreage became a larger plotwhich included a hot house. As inventorygrew, Nat had his sons cultivateknowledge among nongrowers – interiordecorators were taught how to replaceother indoor foliage with more colorfuland perhaps equally durable plants of thebromeliad genera.

And, with the advent of tissue culture inthe hybridizing world, learning curveswere allowed to be met in shorter time.Instead of limiting hybrids from twospecies, hybrids could be made fromparental hybrids. Before tissue culture,crossing hybrids would often lead todiverse results in the pups; but, tissueculture of the “ordained master hybrid”could better establish more wanted andsimilar results of the hybrid offspring ona mass scale – hence making hybridizingmuch more diverse and interesting.

But, mass production stunts hybridizing’sadventure. Many issues exist in thecommercial world which do not exist forthe small farmer or local owner. Natmentioned the following concerns: (1)crossing cold tolerant species with warmtolerant species could create a plant which

favored the cold or warmth when the opposite wassought; (2) plants that are otherwise heat tolerant, aresubject to “box burn” when shipped en masse; (3)horizontal inflorescence would be crushed or strippedin shipping; (4) foliage could be disproportionate toinflorescence (hiding the color) and make otherwiseattractive plant not wanted for commercial setting; and(5) plants with great foliage grow or sucker too slowlyor rarely and thereby making commercial price toohigh for unique plant value.

To illustrate these issues, Nat brought numerous plantsto the lecture. Most plants ended being warm tolerant– thereby ending the first issue. The plants whichsuffered “box burn” had to be scratched fromproduction. The horizontal inflorescence were replacedwith vertical-growing inflorescence which displayedequal beauty and delivered the advantage ofwithstanding shipping. The disproportionately longleaves on certain hybrids would be tampered with byfurther hybridizing – until a shorter-leafed plantemerged, thereby delivering the master shorter-leafedplant to tissue culture for mass replication. And, theuncommonly slow or rare-to-sucker plants just endtheir lives in the labs, as the cost of productionprohibits such plants from becoming involved in thebitter world of Keynesian-economic’s bottom line.

Nat ended the lecture with an insightful paradoxicalconclusion: hybridization leads to less diversity. Theworld of mass production, after employing many of theabove-referenced restrictions, has made thecommercial market – or at least the market held by thelarge box gardening centers of Home Depot and likestores – develop homogeneity of plant style. Thesestores often shelve bromeliads where all look the samein structure, and the exception or distinction is thatone plant’s inflorescence delivers more vibrant ordifferent color than that of the plant sitting to its side.Bromeliad diversity interestingly may have beenreduced by hybridization (something engineeredpredominantly by mass production since the 1980's) asopposed to the foretold belief that hybridization woulddeliver a world of stranger-looking or more awkwardplants that we could admire in pots and elsewhere. %

Aechmea fasciata – The plant which Nat DeLeoncalls, “the ultimate hybrid.”

PHOTO by Graham Alderson

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Can you Identify this Plant?

The 18 WBC Down Underth

by Jose Donayre

Cairns , Australia in North Queensland wasthe perfect setting for the 2008 WBC lastJune. A lovely seaside resort in a balmy Junewhen the big summer crowds are partly gone,played host to the first ever WBC to be stagedoutside the US. People ask why was Australiaselected as its site and the answer is simple.Australia is a power house when it comes tobromeliads. It has 12 Bromeliad Societiesaffiliated to the BSI, some larger or older orwith more members than the others but allsizable by our standards and very active. It hasseveral annual shows hosted by the varioussocieties whose show reports get peoplesalivating confronting the almost impossibilityof acquiring plants and bringing them home.Plus Australia sports many native species andstupendous locally made hybrids. It hasproduced many excellent books ofinternational fame and is home to one of theforemost authorities on bromeliads: “Uncle”Derek is in fact the famous InternationalBromeliad Registrar, Derek Butcher. To haveseen his collection and his Registrar set up athome is an experience in itself.

Out of the 372 people registered, there were67 from the US out ofwhich 11 were fromFlorida. While the largemajority of participantswere from Australia therewere people from NewZealand, Bahamas,Germany, Costa Rica, the

Netherlands, Japan, and South Africa.

Apart from the official meeting of the BSI Boardand a Judges School both taking place before the

S h o w , t h e C a i r n sInternational Hotel wasdecorated by not one but fivecommercial exhibits in anexplosion of color and varietyserving as an introduction tothe spectacular Show andSale. The opening ceremony

with Joyce Breem, BSI President, honored GraceGoode with the Wally Berg Award of Excellence.Derek Butcher was also named Honorary Trustee.

The Show was a combined regular BSI andCrypthantus Society event. It brought togetherabout 250 plants from hobbyists and commercialoutfits to be judged by a mix of Australian and USjudges helped by a score of local clerks. Fivemixed judging teams did the job attesting for theknowledge, experience and quality of the localjudges. The real heroes of the Show were ourFloridians Steve Hoppin and Larry Giroux whohad to organize the reception, classification andplacing of the plants plus orchestrating the workof the judges and clerks. There were spectacularplants of almost all of the common genera.Particularly attractive were a variety of verycompact, wide leaved colorful Vriesias like‘Moctezumas Gem’ as well as the Neo. hybridslike ‘Jaws’ or ‘Leopard’. Best of show forHybridists was a Guzmania ‘Gisela Don Pepe’whose parentage escapes me. Best of show forCommercial was Guzmania ‘Georgia’ a cv. of‘Rana’ (wittmackii x lingulata v. cardinalis). Theplant that caused the most stir was in one of theexhibits, a Neo. ‘Shell Dancer’ presenting with allnarrow leaves curled in as if just out of the beautyparlor. Having seen pictures of this plant, its shaperemains a mystery. Of course, the Sale was thetypically brisk, overwhelming event where plantspassed quickly from vendors to happy shoppers.

There were 13 seminars spread over two days,nine of them by international speakers, whopresented subjects from entertaining to technicaland erudite. From Tillandsias (Paul Isley),Cryptanthus (Larry Giroux), growing bromeliadsindoor (Herb Plever), the biography of EdHummel, the eccentric hybridist (RobertKopfstein), the importance of water (AndrewFlower), Chester Skotak’s colorful world, tostudies on color in neoregelias (John Catlan),

Photo by Moyna Prince

BromeliAdvisory, September 2008Page 4

microclimates (David Liddle), the weevil (JayThurrott), and Diaphorantemas, theminitillandsias (Derek Butcher).

The final banquet attended by about 400people was an occasion to thank the hosts inparticular Lynn Hudson, the Chair of theConference which she had organized and runmost efficiently. Next, back to the US, theLouisiana delegation also presented the 2010WBC to be staged in New Orleans.Registration is open!

SARASOTA BUS TRIP by Moyna Prince Twenty-eight BSSF members and guests wereup before dawn on Saturday, August 9th, tomeet at Dadeland. The bus departed shortlyafter six and off we went in comfort and goodcompany. First stop was Tropiflora Nursery, just northof Sarasota, where we were greeted by Dennisand Linda Cathcart. The Cathcarts had justshipped several large boxes of bromeliads toSingapore Botanic Gardens, but you wouldn'thave noticed any gaps in their greenhouses,which were crammed with Tillandsias,Neoregelias and everything a bromeliadaficionado could desire. I even saw somenon-bromeliad plants coming on board thebus! Then on to Selby Gardens, with a picnic lunchaboard the bus. At Selby we were met byHarry Luther, Director of the BromeliadIdentification Center, and given a tour of thegreenhouses which are generally off-limits tothe public. Of particularly interest was thegreenhouse devoted to bromeliads, whichincluded some very rare and stunning plants.The temperature can be regulated in thesegreenhouses so plants requiring coolertemperatures flourish. The Display House atSelby always has an excellent number oforchid and bromeliad species and cultivarsand other epiphytes. The garden, while muchsmaller than Fairchild, has a lovelylocation onthe bay close to downtown Sarasota. It's wellworth a visit.

After Selby we continued south to Venicewhere we stopped by Michael Kiehl's

nursery. He has an impressive supply ofNeoregelia hybrids and species in addition toother genera. It's impossible to come awayempty-handed.

Then back across the state to Dadeland where wearrived at 8:00 p.m., tired but happy after amemorable day. And a very big THANK-YOU toLori Weyrick who organized the trip!

Missed Out?

Another project is underway. Detailsare at the end of this BromeliAdvisory.

Looks like a hanging basket (really nothanging) of Aechmea nudicaulis surrounded by numerous other bromeliads atHarry Luther’s hot house at Selby GardenPhoto by Moyna Prince

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VA PROJECT a SUCCESS

What do Robert Meyer, Desiree Meyer,Sandy Roth, Jeremy Roth, Juan EspinosaAlmodovar, Alan Herndon, RhondaHerndon, Doris Boiesen, ElizabethMcQuale,, George ___, and Lori Weyrickhave in common? If you answered: membersof the BSSF (wrong), or good hearted kindspirited, or good looking – you would be righton the latter, but have given the wronganswer. The answer is that they are the people whoventured to the VA on Saturday July 26, 2008to plant the garden. And, what a feat it was. Arriving at 10:00 AM they went to themedian where arrangements had been made toplant the material, And then, in 90+ degreetemperature, they witnessed that it had been

sod – leaving nothing for the plants. But, negotiations ensued, and the partieswere permitted to remove the sod.

Soon thereafter, the army of volunteers followedorders of leader and designer Sandy Roth to putcertain beautiful plants in certain proclaimedareas.

The once plain sight of sod, within hours,became a wonderful sight of bromeliad’skaleidoscope of wonder.

BromeliAdvisory, September 2008Page 6

Then they had to work on “another area.”Directly under the sun for every minute ofevery day the sun shine, the dirt was sand, andthe plants had to be drought tolerant and sunloving.

Digging began, and the sun’s heat started totire the souls.

The end result was a miracle in the sun.

At the end the group got together andsomehow showed a smile after the 4 hours inthe sun.

Alan Herndon digs the first dirt on the Project

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What’s in a name?Alan Herndon

Taxonomy is the science of identifyingorganisms and studying the evolutionaryrelationships between these organisms. Aspart of the identification process, a scientificname is attached to each distinct group oforganisms following a formal processgoverned by large books of rules.

Why, you may well ask, is it necessary to gothrough all of this effort just to namesomething? After all, an informal name, forinstance, Neoregelia ‘Bob Read’unambiguously identifies a specific plant (aminiature, highly stoloniferous Neoregeliawith an urn-shaped rosette and small brownspots on the leaves that was introduced togrowers in southern Florida by Robert Read)when used in Miami. ( Not having a betterlabel available, I use this name myself, but Ilook forward to finding a taxonomicallycorrect name.) Unfortunately, the clarity ofsuch labels quickly fades as you get furtherfrom Miami. For instance, the plant mentionedabove has also been called Neoregelia‘Smithsonian’ by some people, so you need toremember both names, or be able to look up alist of synonyms (different names applied tothe same plant) to avoid confusion. Worseyet, the plant called Neoregelia ‘Bob Read’ islikely to be passed from person to person overmany years without a name attached. Whensomeone finally tries to attach a name, asystematic method of finding previous namesapplied to this plant is needed or there is ahigh likelihood that a superfluous new namewill be provided. Finally, different groups ofpeople may use Neoregelia ‘Bob Read’ torefer to different plants. If you want to haveany hope of identifying a plant consistently byits name, you are forced to create lists of thenames applied to each plant and rules todetermine what application of the name is‘correct’. In other words, you have to createthe same formalized naming process alreadyin use by taxonomists.

Plant taxonomists follow the InternationalCode of Botanical Nomenclature. Namesmust be published in widely-distributed,‘permanent’ media to ensure they areaccessible to all interested students (in current

practice, journals must be registered with theInternational Association of Plant Taxonomists).All new plant names proposed within thesejournals according to the rules are indexed.Indices are updated frequently, so you can find allrelevant names in any group of interest. Inparticular, the indices help plant describers avoidproposing the same name for different plants(although mistakes of this sort still occur given theinevitable delays in publication).

In addition to providing names for groups oforganisms, taxonomy also attempts to indicate thedegree of evolutionary similarity between groups.The various clones of Neoregelia johannis, forinstance, are all large plants with broad leaves, aninflorescence that does not fill the cup throughmuch of the flowering period and fruits that arered during development and maturity. Theseshared characters suggest a shared evolutionaryhistory. Similarly, the multifarious clones ofNeoregelia concentrica all presumably sharetaxonomically significant characters that separatethem from all other populations of Neoregelia.

The requirement that differences be taxonomicallysignificant is not trivial. To be taxonomicallysignificant, a character must be genetically based(so it can be inherited), it must be consistent andit must differ from analogous characters in closelyrelated groups. Unfortunately, it is not alwayseasy to determine whether any given character issignificant.

Very striking differences in flower orinflorescence color, for instance, may becompletely insignificant. Plants with whiteversions of highly colored flowers are usuallyfound when a large enough population isexamined. In most cases, these occur sporadicallywith no discernable pattern in the population as awhole and cannot be considered taxonomicallysignificant (although they might be quitesignificant horticulturally). Variegation is anotherexample of a taxonomically insignificantcharacteristic that can lead to very strikingdifferences in the appearance of two plants.Finally, whenever you deal with large numbers ofplants, there are always a few freaks withunexpected characteristics such as inflorescencesappearing to grow from the lateral leaf axils ratherthan the center of the plant or an elongate stem ona plant that normally is essentially stemless

BromeliAdvisory, September 2008Page 8

You can also get drastic differences in theappearance of genetically identical plantssimply by the response of individual plants todifferences in growing conditions. Withbromeliads in general, and Neoregelia inparticular, we know that less light and morefertilizer produce plants with much longer andnarrower leaves. The same degree ofdifference can be seen in leaf color and/orpattern. You can turn Neoregelia ‘Fireball’green and keep it that way by simplyincreasing fertilizer applications. We alsoknow that genetically identical plants ofdrastically different sizes can bloomsimultaneously with corresponding differencesin the size, and sometimes, degree ofbranching in the inflorescence. There are alsovariations caused by changed growingconditions during inflorescence development.Suppose a bromeliad that normally has erectinflorescence falls over after the inflorescenceis half grown. The inflorescence continues togrow, but the tip readjusts so it is againgrowing straight up, completely altering theshape of the inflorescence.

Within the bromeliads, species ofOrthophytum (in the disjunctum complex) canhave especially startling differences inappearance as successive generations of(genetically identical) pups mature. There aredifferences in the number of inflorescencebranches, in the separation of branches, in thenumbers of flowers produced per branch andin the timing of pup production at the ends ofthe branches. Some of these changes areclearly related to plant size (dependent mostlyupon the amount of fertilizer applied), butothers are unexplained.

Facing all of these problems, taxonomistssometimes assign names to plants thatconfuse, rather than clarify, the relationshipsbetween groups. Other workers might thenreinterpret the data in a new way, and proposea new system of names to more accuratelyreflect natural relationships. This leads to thename changes and lists of synonyms that areso characteristic of formal taxonomy. Youdon’t need to fret over these changes unlessyou are a working taxonomist. Knowing thename used in a standard reference work(including a picture book such as Baensch)will allow you to find the information

published on almost all plants, and that is the realreason to bother with names in the first place.Knowing the name allows you to talk with otherpeople about a plant, share experiences, etc.without having to be in the same room with theplant in front of you. So, make the effort to learnthe names of your plants. It will be paid back inthe greater ability to talk to others about sharedinterests.TOO MUCH WATER AFFECTING YOUR PLANTS?By Moyna Prince

Keep a close eye on bromeliads after the constantheavy rains of the last few days. Potted plantsshould be dumped frequently. If the mix looksreally soggy, bring the plants under cover untilthey dry out.

Brown, mushy lower leaves indicate rot. Removethose leaves and pull the mix back from the plant,allowing air to get to it. Again, bring it undercover.

If center leaves look unsightly and smell horrible,gently pull out the rotten leaves until you reachhealthy-looking ones. You might remove theentire plant from the mix and allow it to dry in anempty, clean pot. This will enable it to harden offand recover.

Plants in the ground are harder to nurse back tohealth. If it's a valuable one that looks a bit sickyou might want to dig it up and bring it undercover. How do you know if it's sick? If the lowerleaves are brown and rotting, if the center leavesare discolored and if the general condition hasdeteriorated.

Tillandsias can suffer from an over-abundance ofrain if their root systems aren't allowed to dry out.Removing dead plants and leaves can go a longway to allowing good air circulation in yourTillandsia clumps.

Fast draining media and good air circulation willgo a long way to speeding your plants to recovery.

Ed Prince Garden Sign Up Sheet will bedistributed at the Meeting – your chance toengage in community service, adorn SunsetHigh School, and in the name of one of thesociety’s greatest characters.