Thanks for your help! I did not realize that it was a Tillandsia, but I guess that does help explain why they are so inexpensive and also explains why it has almost no roots. Knowing it is a tillandsia will also help me understand how to care for it. It is not the only tillandsia I have in a pot, as I have a Dyckia Recurvata (is that a tillandsia?) in a pot, and it resembles tillandsia that I have.

What does tissue culture production mean?

I do bring this plant inside in the evening to use in place of cut flowers, as it is small enough to move easily. Many of my other bromeliads are too big to move easily, and they are spiny besides, and so I have to wear gloves and protection to handle them.

Here is my Dyckia plant:

Should I treat this like a bromeliad or as a tillandsia? Does it need to stay in a pot?

Your plant, often called a pink quill, is the only tillandsia that I know of that needs to be in a pot. All other tillandsias either don't have roots or have a few as anchors. It needs soil so I would treat it more like other broms then a tillandsia.

That is a nice plant.

L.G.

When I bought it, it was in soil, and that's why I did not think of it as a tillandsia. It's in an area where I just spray the plants and generally do not bother to water the soil, as the branches of the plants make it difficult to reach the soil. The water seems to trickle down to where it is needed anyway.

Some ideas for displaying your plant:

TILLANDSIA AIR PLANT UPDATE TOUR: LETS UNPOT THIS PINK QUILL AIR PLANT Tillandsia Cyanea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP0gu_fZO14

All about Tillandsia Air Plants: Great ways to hang and display your Tillandsia Air Plants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu5tUNsgg5U

Also should be lots of other Cyanea videos on YT

Hi everyone.

Lars – You say you have a plant called Dyckia
Recurvata and ask if it’s a Tillandsia. The short answer to your question is no
it isn’t a Tillandsia, it’s a Dyckia which is another genus altogether.

Dyckia comes from a sub-family called Pitcairnioideae
which is totally different from the sub-family containing your Tillandsia which
is called Tillandsioideae.

I don’t grow any Dyckia so I’m of no
help with the name Recurvata and I can’t find it listed on the BCR or the FCBS
site being used as a name and expect someone has just added it to describe your
plant as the word “Recurvata” means “with recurved leaves”; bent or curved
downward or backward and is applied to many different types of plants and it
seems that someone has applied it to the name tag of your plant as well. As for
cultural tips, I’ll leave that to someone else who knows about it.

To explain about bromeliad names a bit
further, Bromeliaceae is the name
given to the whole of the bromeliad family.

This family is then further broken down
into three sub-families called:

Bromelioideae which consists
of 32 genera: Acanthostachys, Aechmea , Ananas, Androlepis, Araeococcus ,
Billbergia , Bromelia , Canistropsis , Canistrum, Cryptanthus, Deinacanthon ,
Disteganthus, Edmundoa, Eduandrea , Fascicularia, Fernseea , Greigia ,
Hohenbergia, Hohenbergiopsis, Lymania , Neoglaziovia , Neoregelia , Nidularium,
Ochagavia , Orthophytum , Portea , Pseudaechmea , Pseudananas , Quesnelia ,
Ronnbergia , Ursulaea , Wittrockia ,

Pitcairnioideae consisting of 16
genera: Brewcaria , Brocchinia ,
Connellia , Cottendorfia , Deuterocohnia , Dyckia , Encholirium , Fosterella,
Hechtia, Lindmania, Navia, Pepinia, Pitcairnia, Puya, Sequencia ,
Steyerbromelia.

Tillandsioideae which contains 9
genera: Alcantarea , Catopsis ,
Glomeropitcairnia , Guzmania , Mezobromelia, Racinaea, Tillandsia , Vriesea ,
Werauhia

As for Tissue Culture, well that a
pretty involved way of mass producing plants and is done in a laboratory. You
can read all about it on the two links below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_tissue_culture

https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/science/Herbarium_and_resources/laboratories/tissue_culture

All the best, Nev.

Here is another photo of the Tillandsia cyanea:

The yellow flower on the 2nd plant looked enchanting (and I thought unusual for a brom), as though it might have a wonderful fragrance like a freesia. So I duckduckgo'ed it under the name you had, and came across http://florawww.eeb.uconn.edu/199900591.html where it had a tiny picture of what Splinter identified, Dyckia brevifolia Baker (just click on the pic, it will enlarge). So with a better name, you may be able to find more info about the pretty plant. I have been reading through the Bromeliad Society Newsletters I downloaded (PDF format) and I'm up to 1963 or so (I have up to 2013; the rest come with a subscription), and it seems a Dyckia and Hechia are known for the (thorns? spikes?) on their leaves, necessitating great care and heavy gloves. Thus I probably won't be getting any of them (hey, I can get cactus around here easily enough!). :)