Tillandsia balbisiana Schult. & Schult. fil.

Plants single or clustering, flowering to 75 cm. Stems short. Leaves 15--30, many-ranked, reflexed, twisted or contorted, gray, often flushed red, to 65 ´ 0.6--1.4 cm, appressed-grayish-scaly; sheath conspicuously rust-colored toward base, ovate to elliptic, conspicuously inflated, forming small pseudobulb, 2--4 cm wide; blade linear-triangular, leathery, channeled to involute, apex attenuate. Inflorescences: scape conspicuous, erect, 8--30 cm, 2--4 mm diam.; bracts densely imbricate, spreading, recurved and twisted like leaves; sheath of bracts narrowing gradually into blade; spikes erect, 2-pinnate, linear, compressed, 2--10 ´ 1 cm, apex acute; lateral branches 2--10 (rarely simple). Floral bracts imbricate, erect, green to red, broad (covering all or most of rachis, rachis not visible at anthesis), elliptic, keeled, 1.5--2 cm, leathery, base not visible at anthesis, apex acute, surfaces glabrous to inconspicuously scaly near apex only, venation even to slight. Flowers 5--30, conspicuous; sepals with adaxial pair connate, lanceolate, keeled, 1.5--2 cm, leathery, apex acute, surfaces glabrous; corolla tubular; petals erect, violet, ligulate, to 3.5 cm; stamens exserted; stigma exserted, conduplicate-spiral. Fruits to 4 cm.

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

Flowering spring--summer.

Epiphytic on a variety of hosts in open woods, cypress swamps, coastal forest; 0--30m.

Tillandsia balbisiana Schultes, in R. & S. Syst Veg. 7: 1212. 1830.
Tillandsia Unuifolia Bertero; Schultes, in R. & S. Syst. Veg. 7; 1212, as synonym. 1830. Not
T. tenuifolia L. 1762. Platyslaihys digitala Beer, Bromel. 84. 1857. Tillandsia Urbaniana Wittm. Bot. Jahrb. 11: 65. 1889. Tillandsia cubensis Gand. Bull. Soc. Bot. Fr. 66: 290. 1920.
Plant stemless, 13-65 cm. high; leaves many in a dense bulbous rosette, often exceeding the inflorescence if extended but typically recurved, densely and minutely pale-appressed-lepidote throughout, often purple-margined; sheaths ovate, large, inflated, forming an ovoid or ellipsoid pseudobulb up to 12 cm. long, pale-ferruginous toward the base; blades abruptly spreading or recurved from the apices of the sheaths, linear-triangular, filiform-acuminate, 1 cm. wide at the base, usually involute for their entire length; scape erect or ascending, slender, subglabrous; scape-bracts erect, imbricate, elliptic with long, linear, spreading or rtflexed blades, inflated; inflorescence densely pinnate or subdigitatc or rarely simple and distichous-flowered, slenderly fusiform or subcylindric, dense, up to 2 dm. long; primary bracts like the upper scape-bracts, at least their sheaths shorter than the axillary spikes; spikes sessile, strict, linear in outline, acute, 3-12 cm. long, 1 cm. wide at anthesis, complanate; floral bracts erect, imbricate, ovate, obtuse and apiculate but often appearing acute in drying, 15-22 mm. long, exceeding llic sepals, coriaceous, even or slightly nerved toward the apex, glabrous or obscurely lepidote, ecarinate, often bright-red; flowers erect; pedicels very short; sepals lanceolate, acute, coriaceous, even,

Tillandsia balbisiana, common name northern needleleaf, is a species of bromeliad in the genus Tillandsia. This species in native to Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, the West Indies, and Florida.