Those are good questions, Ralph, and you are not likely to find the answers on the internet. The only way to find out is to either find an experienced Tillandsia hybridizer and ask them about each of the species you are interested in, or..... try it yourself! I recommend the second one. Personal experience is the best teacher! I have worked with a lot of other genera but not Tillandsias (too slow!). However, just based on casual observation, it seems that some Tills set seed much more easily than others. This indicates to me that some species are probably self-pollinators while other species are not. As with other bromeliad genera, there seem to be different degrees of self-compatibility. For example, T. polystachia will set seed every time it blooms without any help from me, so I would definitely put that into the strong "selfer" group. Other species seem to require some pollination help but are still self-compatible. My one and only attempt to grow Tillandsia seeds was with T. jalisco-monticola, which doesn't usually set seed on its own, but I had no trouble getting it to accept its own pollen. I have seen seed pods forming on T. ionantha enough times to think it may be self-compatible too, but I have never tested it out. On the other hand, I have made several attempts to pollinate T. cyanea with no luck. I don't know if that means it is not self-compatible, or if it is just a matter of all of the floral parts being hidden down inside the bract where they are difficult to get to. A friend of mine told me he had acheived some success getting seed on cyanea by sticking a long cat's whisker down into the flower, but I don't know if he was using two diffent clones of the species or just selfing it. Perhaps Gonzer or one of the other Tillandsia growers can tell you more about which species will self-pollinate. My understanding of self-compatibility or incompatibility is that it doesn't make any difference if the pollen is from the same flower, another flower on the same plant, or another flower on another plant of the same clone (a pup or division from the same original source). They would all be considered "self". Some others here may argue with this, I know we've had this discussion here before with one of our members claiming that in some other plant families pollinating a flower with a different flower in the same clump can result in pollination where pollen from the same flower wouldn't. This makes no sense to me, as they should all be genetically identical. My understanding is that if you have a species that requires outside pollination, you need to use a different clone. This doesn't have to be a different species, it can be a different cultivar of the same species, or even two seedlings of the same cv. from the same parent plants, as long as it's not a vegetative division from the same source as the one you're trying to pollinate. Sometimes it's hard to know if you've got one clone or two. Even getting plant material from several different people may not help if they all came from the same original specimen. Before you start worrying about all of this, though, I suggest you try self-pollinating your plants. Tillandsia seeds can take up to a year to set up (and up to 8 years to grow to maturity!), but you should know within a month or two if your plant is setting seed, and from that you'll know whether that species is self-compatible or not. Good luck, I hope you have a lot of patience! ;-)

Stan, are those not rather T. bergeri? And your question, I like 3 large clumps better than one huge one - it means the 'show' is spread out a bit and not just one over powering one. And about aeranthos and bergeri, for me, the aeranthos flower dutifully year after year, but bergeri never. It seems to grow better and form huge clumps for me, maybe just because I ignore them cause they don't flower. But I read that bergeri needs temps down to 5 degrees C or lower to bring them into flower. I even had a small bunch sleeping in my fridge (2 degrees) every night for 2 weeks on end last Winter, still no flowers! Japie

Thanks..I know some UK nursery's website had it for sale for something like $6. Mine was from my previous greenhouse managers job.It grows fine outdoors-naturally much faster with 80F all year.And on that website they did say what Japie mentioned about not dividing. Another year or two and i can trade some.I think the bloom weighs more than the plant.

Gonzer, you left out T. cyanea and T. lindenii. I've got some clumps of cyanea blooming now, and it's lovely. Spicy, like carnations or allspice! I don't know if regular Neo. chlorosticta has fragrant flowers, but the cv. Marble Throat definitely does. Kind of caught me off guard, you wouldn't expect a Neo to be fragrant. You have to have your face right up in there, though-- one of the perks of hybridizing. More often you get the lovely smell of decomposing debris in the cup, in fact Neo. olens was named for that. I've never noticed that olens was any stinkier than any other species, though. According to Victoria Padilla's book, Quesnelia marmorata gives off a fruity fragrance from the center of the plant a few weeks before it actually blooms (the flowers themselves are not fragrant). I've never noticed this either. The same book claims that Billbergia horrida is fragrant at night. She also describes Catopsis berteroniana, Alcantarea imperialis and Vriesea racinae as somewhat fragrant, but again, not something I've noticed myself. The Tillies seem to be the most aromatic bunch. In addition to the ones already mentioned, she describes T. cacticola, dyeriana, jucunda, streptocarpa and xiphioides as fragrant. I don't know about the others, but I never noticed anything from T. dyeriana. Has anyone else?