There was a plant that had been named by Werner Rauh in Bromelienstudien in 1988 as Tillandsia pfeufferi. Once you have tried to pronounce this name a few times it tends to stick in your memory! Anyway, this was my first thought and the only main difference I could see between this description and the Aussie plant was that ours had wider leaves. so T. pfeufferi it was.
In 1996 at the Orlando Conference I achieved much and learnt much. One of my achievements was to corner Wolfgang Tittelbach, the Editor of Die Bromelie, the German Society Journal, and ask him about Tillandsia pfeufferi. I must have pronounced it correctly because he didn't bat an eye-lid although he did laugh.
It appears that a chap called Pfeuffer had imported a large batch of Tillandsias from Argentina and there was one un-named clump which looked distinctly different to the rest. He asked Werner Rauh for an identification, which resulted in a new species - Tillandsia pfeufferi, being described. Needless to say it is very rare. It was its rarity that caused Wolfgang to chuckle at my expense!
On my return to Australia the name T. pfeufferi kept ringing in my ears, for more reason than one ! Our U.S. Bromeliad purchases had been quarantined at David Scheumack's and when we went to retrieve our plants after the allotted time (3 months) I was able to enquire about that odd plant that Ken Woods had acquired. So I became the proud owner of this very, very rare Tillandsia pfeufferi.
It flowered for me and I took photographs which I sent to Walter Till in Vienna. His verdict was not a happy one. He considered that T. pfeufferi was a hybrid between T. lorentziana and T. vernicosa (and thus was rare) My plant did not appear to be a hybrid ( one point in my favour ! ) but seemed to share affinity with the complex surrounding T. lorentziana and T. zecheri. In fact my plant could be yet another variety of T. zecheri, but alas I have no collection data and can only wait until it is found again in the wild and possibly named.
In the meantime I'm calling my plant Tillandsia 'Pfantom', to remind me phonetically of its tenuous links with Tillandsia pfeufferi."
