Pitcairnia longissimiflora from Bolivia: Santa Cruz, La Paz (N.Yungas) was described by Ibisch, Vasquez & Gross (1999). Unfortunately only a short description was given and the picture of the plant in its habitat hardly shows anything. This makes it difficult to identify a plant to this name.

In 2007 we got a young plant named "Pitcairnia crassa L.B.Sm." from the Botanic Garden Berlin-Dahlem (Germany), collected by T. Kromer with number 8664 from Bolivia, Dept Cochabamba, Prov. Chapaie, Parque Nacional Carrusco, Alt.300 m. Last year it was flowering (see figure 1) with huge hanging flowers over 15 cm long, which is extremely large for a Pitcairnia. In the Monograph of Smith & Downs it did key out to P.crassa, but at the same time there were many differences with the description. So what was it, could it be a new species?

At Brom-L (virtual Bromeliad Society on internet) a "Casus Pro Diagnosi" was created http://florapix.nl/Brom-L/identification/128/ and Harry Luther replied "Seems to be new but related to Pitcairnia longissimiflora from Dept. Santa Cruz. P. crassa is bigger and crasser". Reading the short description mentioned above, I got the impression...