Introduction.

It has been 14 years since the publication of the first volume of Jewels in the Jungle, Bromeliaceae of Ecuador Part I: Bromelioideae, and 11 years since the publication of the second volume, Ecuador Part II: Pitcairnioideae.

Many friends ask me what is happening with Part III: Tillandsioideae, to which I reply that it is on its way. There are several causes for the delay of the third volume. The primary cause was waiting on the publication of the new classification of Tillandsioideae based on DNA studies. These studies were initiated by Barfuss & Till, et al. and were published in October of 2016. It would have been unwise to publish the third volume only to see major changes in the classification that would have made the third volume outdated immediately. So, I have waited as it is important to get the names in line with the new findings.

It is important to use the correct name for a bromeliad. The name of a bromeliad is like the name of a person. My name is Jose Manuel, but sometimes people call me Jose Miguel, Juan Manuel, Jose Maria and other names that are not my name. The same goes for our plants. Calling an Aechmea a Tillandsia is wrong. But it is just as bad to get the species name wrong. It is like calling me Jose Manuel Gonzalez instead of Jose Manuel Manzanares. To do this for a bromeliad is like calling a Tillandsia multicaulis a Tillandsia complanata instead. To avoid these mistakes, we must know the plants well, watch them in their habitat, review the original descriptions, types, etc. and this takes a lot of time.

The other major cause for the delay is assembling photographs of all the species to be published in the new volume. In the first two volumes, the species are detailed morphologically, with comments on their habitat, and details on the collections made. And especially it contains photographs of plants in their habitat when possible and otherwise depicts the herbarium type specimen. But always there are pictures that make it easy to identify the species in the collections in our greenhouses. For these reasons, the third volume of Bromeliads of Ecuador is a few years late.

To have excellent pictures of all of the Tillandsioideae it was necessary to make a photographic safari in Ecuador looking for Tillandsias in bloom. Great works require the support of many people. The support from the many people who bought my previous books and the support in directly funding the travel is very important to enable finishing the third volume. So, with Eric Gouda and Jerry Raack providing support, we planned a safari around Ecuador to get the best photos possible for the book. There is a great advantage in having multiple people involved in the trip because three people see more blooming bromeliads than one, making the safari more successful.

Since our goal was to photograph as many genera of the subfamily Tillandsioideae as possible,...