Ursulaea tuitensis has always captured my attention. It grows quite well here in San Diego, California and almost always seems to have nice red leaves. It is a peculiar plant in that it has somewhat thick succulent leaves, does not form a cup to capture water, crawls around with its short and stout stolons exposed above the surface, and then produces an incredible erect inflorescence with large pink bracts reminiscent of a beautiful Bilbergia. This species was brought into cultivation in the first half of the 1980's and at first incorrectly identified as Aechmea macvaughii, but was quickly recognized as new and described as Aechmea tuitensis. Due to their unique look and being found in the same region, the new genus Ursulaea was created for this species from El Tuito, Jalisco and Aechmea macvaughii.

At first glance the two species are quite different from each other. In cultivation U. tuitensis plants usually don't grow much larger than ~18" (45 cm) tall and around ~24" (60 cm) wide with an erect inflorescence that maybe reaches a little over 24-30" (60-75 cm) tall. The leaves are fleshy and a bit flexible and do not quite form a 'cup' to hold water. In contrast, U. macvaughii can easily be 4-5' (1.2-1.5 m) tall and spread even wider. The inflorescence is large, heavy, and pendulous and the stiff and somewhat brittle leaves make a substantial reservoir for water. While these are notable differences, there are some things that show that they are closely related. They both have relatively large round, smooth ovaries/berries covered in dense white trichomes and are both restricted to a small region of Western Mexico.

In southern California, almost everyone has (or should have!) an U. tuitensis in their collection. U. macvaughii is very rare (probably a bit large and too cold tender for most growers here). It definitely seems more common in Florida and Australian collections. I wasn't able to find any pictures of U. macvaughii in habitat and no one I asked had seen such pictures or seen the plant in habitat themselves. So, with U. tuitensis having such a peculiar growth habit and inflorescence and U. macvaughii being so large and so mysterious to me, I really wanted to see them both in habitat.

Since it was always more of a side project to find them, it took several attempts with a good bit of hiking to find the initial Ursulaea tuitensis plants. The species is apparently restricted to a narrow elevation band starting at the transition zone between the oak and pine forests (Fig. 1) and continues up into the pine forest. It isn't clear to me if that is determined by climactic requirements of the plants themselves preferring cooler temperatures or possibly more simply by the restricted nature of the distribution of suitable boulders covered with moss (a potential problem of filling such a specific niche). The plants appear to only be able to become established on moss-covered granite boulders (Fig. 2, 3, 5) which can...