| Andrew Flower of New Zealand reports getting seed from the BSI Seed list March/April 1990 named Aechmea recurvata var. tokurii and we show you photographs of this "rare" plant in flower. There was certainly no variety of this name in Harry Luther's Binomial list and we felt sure we were looking at Aechmea recurvata var. recurvata. We could find no place name of Tokura in South America in a Gazetteer but lots of pointers to Japan! A hunch had me looking at the Bromeliad Cultivar Registry and there was the cultivar 'Tokuri' (note - one 'i').
The glowing description there by Talnadge says "Thick leathery light green leaves - brown teeth - long and slender when young - recurving slightly, becoming wide stubby and recurving greatly at maturity - center leaves turn brilliant red - like a bucket of red paint when about to bloom - very rare." This describes many forms of Aechmea recurvata that are given bright light at flowering. Surely cultivars should be outstandingly different and not just given names to increase sales.
As Derek keeps pointing out to me that the BSI now follows the ICNCP rules and we should set high standards of identification and what better than to start with seed raising. Now that the Luther's Binomial List and the BCR are within easy access, checks should be made for seed received so that the name on the packet is as accurate as possible. It is slowly being understood that seed from a hybrid does not reproduce that hybrid but produce that of its children. Further, a hybrid is now called a Cultivar as too is a selected clone of a species or variety from the wild. What is not generally understood is that only an offset from a Cultivar (whether hybrid or not!) should retain that name. The only exception is where seedlings from a self-setting non-hybrid cultivar that have been assiduously culled to retain the identity. Even with self-set seed the seedlings would show the attributes of the species or variety it was originally selected from!
In this particular case we can only recommend to Andrew that he puts Aechmea recurvata var. recurvata on his seedlings because only Talnadge knew what the real differences were and we have no photo to verify this.
Auntie Margaret
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