Twisted Airplant

Plants single or in small clusters, flowering to 1 m. Stems short. Leaves 10--20, many-ranked, spreading to recurved, spirally twisted, gray or reddish, banded silver, to 40 ´ 1--2.5 cm, appressed-grayish-scaly; sheath dark chestnut brown, broadly elliptic to ovate, not inflated, not forming pseudobulb, 2--3 cm wide; blade narrowly triangular, leathery, channeled to involute, apex attenuate. Inflorescences: scape conspicuous, erect, 15--40 cm, 3--5 mm diam.; bracts laxly imbricate, erect to spreading, distal widely spaced, like leaves but gradually smaller; sheath of bracts narrowing abruptly into blade; spikes very laxly 2--6-flowered, erect to spreading, simple or 2-pinnate, linear in outline, 12--40 ´ 3--4.5 cm, apex acute; lateral branches 2--8. Floral bracts widely spaced, spreading with flowers, gray or reddish, exposing most of rachis at anthesis, elliptic, not keeled, 2.3--3.1 cm, thin-leathery, base not visible at anthesis, apex acute, surfaces glabrous to slightly scaly. Flowers 5--40, conspicuous; sepals free, elliptic, not keeled, 2--3 cm, leathery to thin-leathery, veined, apex obtuse, surfaces glabrous; corolla tubular, petals erect, apex spreading, pink to dark rose, ligulate, to 4 cm; stamens exserted; stigma exserted, conduplicate-spiral. Fruits to 7.5 cm.

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

Flowering summer.

Epiphytic in exposed habitats often near the coast; 0--30m.

Tillandsia aloifolia Hooker

Tillandsia flexuosa Sv. Prodr. 56. 1788
TiUandsiaUnuifolia"h." ]3.cq.Se.St p. Am. 92. 1763. Not T. lenuifolia h. 1762.
Tillandsia flexuosa P fasciata Lindl. Bot. Reg. 9; under pi. 749. 1823.
Tillandsia aloifolia Hook. Exot. Fl. pi. 205. 1826.
Tillandsia patens Willd.; Schultes, in R. & S. Syst. Veg. 7: 1229. 1830.
Vriesea aloifolia Beer, Bromel. 95. 1857.
Vriesea lenuifolia Beer, Bromel. 96, in part. 1857.
Platystachys patens K. Koch, Ind. Sem. Hort. Berol. 1873: App. 4: 5. 1874.
Tillandsia flexuosa var. vivipara Andr^, Bromel. Andr. 82. 1889.
Plant stemless, 2-15 dm. high; leaves 10-20 in a dense often subbulbous rosette, 2-5 dm. long, densely pale-appressed-lepidote, usually marked with broad white transverse stripes, the outer bladeless, squamiform; sheaths ovate, very large but passing into the blade without clear distinction; blades narrowly triangular, about 25 mm. wide, acuminate, then abruptly and I)ungently acute, stiff, cur-ed; scape erect, slender, glabrous; scape-bracts erect, tubular-involute, elliptic, acute or obtuse, appressed-lepidote, at least the upper ones shorter than the internodes; inflorescence simple or very laxly bipinnate; primary bracts like the upper scapebracts, much shorter than the sterile bases of the axillary branches; branches ascending, up to 4 dm. long, verj' laxly flowered; rhachis slender, flexuous, sharply angled, glabrous; floral bracts spreading with the flowers, elliptic, broadly acute, 2-3 cm. long, equaling or shorter than the sepals, about equaling the internodes, ecarinate, chartaceous, prominently nerved, densely or sparsely appressed-lepidote; pedicels up to 7 mm. long; sepals narrowly elliptic, obtuse, 2-3 cm. long, 7 mm. wide, free, subchartaceous, prominently nerved, sparsely lepidote or glabrous; petals tubular-erect, linear, acute, up to 4 cm. long, white or rose or purple; stamens exserted; capsule slenderly cylindric, acuminate, up to 7 cm. long.
Type locality: Cartagena, Colombia.
Distribution: Southern Florida and West Indies; Panama; also in Guiana, Venezuela, and Colombia.

Tillandsia flexuosa, the twisted airplant, is a species of bromeliad in the genus Tillandsia. This species is native to Central America, southeastern Mexico (Veracruz, Yucatán Peninsula), northern South America (Colombia, Venezuela, Guianas) and the United States (Florida).