Tillandsia variabilis Schltdl.

Plants usually single, rarely clustering, flowering to 40 cm. Stems short. Leaves 15--20, many-ranked, spreading, gray-green or flushed rose, 12--30 ´ 1--2 cm, finely appressed-scaly; sheath pale to nearly chestnut brown, ovate, flat, not forming pseudobulb, 2--4 cm wide; blade narrowly triangular, tapering evenly from base to apex, nearly plane to channeled, soft, brittle, margins involute, apex attentuate. Inflorescences: scape conspicuous, erect or ascending, 3--10 cm, 2--5 mm diam.; bracts densely imbricate, erect, blade often hanging, like leaves but gradually smaller; sheath of bracts narrowing abruptly into blade; spikes erect or ascending, never palmate, linear, compressed, 5--20 ´ 0.8--1.2 cm, apex acute; simple or laxly 2--3 lateral branches. Floral bracts laxly imbricate, erect, green, red, or purple, broad (covering all or most of rachis, rachis not visible at anthesis), elliptic, keeled toward apex, 1.8--2 ´ 0.6--0.9 cm, leathery, base visible in fruit, apex acute, surfaces glabrous. Flowers 5--30, conspicuous; sepals with adaxial pair connate, oblong, keeled, 1.5--1.8 cm, thin-leathery, slightly veined, apex obtuse, surfaces glabrous; corolla tubular, petals erect, lavender-blue, ligulate, to 3 cm; stamens exserted; stigma exserted, conduplicate-spiral. Fruits to 3 cm.

Fla.; Mexico; West Indies; Central America; South America.

Flowering spring--fall.

Epiphytic in moist, shaded habitats; 0--30m.

Tillandsia houzeavii Chapman; T. valenzuelana A. Richard

Bosques húmedos.

Distribucion en Costa Rica: Se encuentra en San Ramón (Bajo Rodríguez), Cartago y Turrialba. Elevación: de 600 a 1200 m.
Distribucion General: De Florida a Panamá, Venezuela, Bolivia y las Antillas.

Epífita.

Epífitas, acaulescentes. Hojas de 21 a 37.5 cm, subcoriáceas. Vainas de 2 a 4.1 cm, canela, adpreso-lepidotas. Láminas de 1 a 2.1 cm, angostamente triangulares, densamente lepidotas. Escapo de 12 a 26 cm, erecto. Brácteas foliáceas igual o más largas que los entrenudos. Inflorescencia de 12 a 17 cm, unipinnada. Brácteas más cortas que las espigas. Ramos laterales de 5 a 12.5 cm, de erectos a ascendentes. Brácteas florales de 1.5 a 2.8 cm, más largas que los sépalos, imbricadas, pero comúnmente patentes, ecarinadas, nervadas, de glabras a lepidotas, cartáceas. Sépalos de 1.2 a 1.8 cm, cartáceos. Pétalos de morados a azul-lila. Cápsulas de 2.1 a 2.6 cm. Se reconoce por sus hojas angostamente triangulares e inflorescencia conspicuamente paniculada, con las ramificaciones laterales evidentes.

Localidad del tipo:
Depositario del tipo:
Recolector del tipo:

Tillandsia valenzuelana A. Rich, in Sagra, Hist Cuba 11: 267. 1850.
Platystachys Morilziana Beer. Bromel. 265, nomen. 1857.
Tillandsia Morilziana Klotzsch; Beer, Bromel. 265, hyponym. 1857.
Tillandsia laxa Griseb. Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 596. 1864.
Tillandsia Kunthiana "Gaud." Griseb. Nachr. Ges. Wiss. Gott. 1864: 15. 1865. Not T. Knnthiana
Gaud. 1846. Tillandsia brachypoda Baker, Jour. Bot. 25: 237. 1887. Tillandsia sublaxa Baker, Jour. Bot. 2S: 280. 1887. Tillandsia polystachya var. alba Wittm. Bot. Jahrb. 11: 65. 1889. Tillandsia Houzeavii E. Morren; Baker, Handb. Bromel. 188, as synonym. 1889. Tillandsia Purpusii Mez, Repert. Sp. Nov. 14: 251, in p;irt. 1916. Tillandsia domingensis Mez, Repert. Sp. Nov. 16: 73. 1919.
Stemless, 2-6 dm. high ; leaves numerous in a utriculate rosette, up to 4 dm. long, sometimes exceeding the inflorescence, the outer ones reduced to scale-like sheaths, very densely and finely appressed-cinereous-lepidote throughout, occasionally becoming glabrous above; sheaths large, ovate, concolorous with the blade; blades linear-triangular, acuminate, flat or slightly inroUed in drying, 10-25 mm. wide; scape central, erect or ascending, slender, glabrous; scape-bracts erect, imbricate, ovate, inflated, densely and finely cinereous-lepidote, pink or red, fading to olivaceous, at least the lower ones with linear subfoliaceous blades; inflorescence simple or pinnately compound with a few spikes; axes slender, soon glabrous; primary bracts like the upper scape-bracts, their sheaths much shorter than the axillary spikes but the elongate blades sometimes exceeding the lower ones; spikes divergent, oblong, acute, complanate, often rather lax, 6-17-flowered with the larger spikes usually in the simple inflorescences, especially the terminal spike with sterile bracts at base, 5-20 cm. long, 1-2 cm. wide; rhachis slender, angled, slightly flexuous; floral bracts erect or slightly divergent, mostly two to three times as long as the internodes, usually exposing the rhachis, elliptic-oblong, obtuse or apiculate, about 2 cm. long, 8 mm. wide, much exceeding the sepals, submembranaceous, prominently nerved, subglabrous, pink or red, usually drying to dull-olivaceous, ecarinate or sometimes carinate toward apex; flowers subsessile; sepals oblong, obtuse, more or less connate posteriorly; petals linear, acute, 3 cm. long, lilac or violet; stamens exserted, the filaments undulate near apex; capsule prismatic, abruptly acute, 3 cm. long.
Type locality: Cuba.
Distribution: Southern Florida and Greater Antilles; southern Mexico and Central America; also in Colombia, Venezuela, and Bolivia.

Tillandsia variabilis, the leatherleaf airplant, is a species of bromeliad in the genus Tillandsia. This species is native to Bolivia, Costa Rica, Mexico (Veracruz, Oaxaca, San Luis Potosí, Tabasco, Chiapas, Yucatán, Puebla), Venezuela, Colombia, the West Indies and southern Florida.

Tillandsia variabilis is an epiphyte growing in the branches of various trees in moist forests. It is up to 40 cm long including the inflorescence, usually single but occasionally in clumps. Leaves are narrowly triangular, soft and brittle, up to 30 cm long. Inflorescence is usually simple, sometimes with 2-3 branches but never palmately branched. Bracts are red, green or purple, less than 1 cm wide, covering and obscuring the rachis. Flowers are lavender to blue, up to 3 cm long.

Tillandsia variabilis là một loài thuộc chi Tillandsia. Đây là loài bản địa của Bolivia, Costa Rica, México và Hoa Kỳ.