Mike, I'm not growing A. manzanaresiana, but just based on your photos and others I've looked at, I don't think your plant fits. If the FCBS photos are any indication, it is a pretty variable species alright, but none of the pictures show silver bands, and the form appears to be completely different. If you read the Uncle Derek article, the first key says "leaf blades concolorous". And none of the species in that group has the kind of tubular, few-leaved rosette that your plant has, with "knuckles", no less! That's not a common feature, and it narrows down the possibilities a lot. My guess would be A. flavorosea, but I wouldn't rule out a form of A. nudicaulis either.

Mike:

I have grown this sp. for about almost a decade and have plants from two good commercial sources. I agree with Lisa that the offsets look rather "odd", both interms of color and morphology. The flowering plant also looks rather like a tessmannii, but this may be purely a function of soft culture. There is some variation between the indviduals I have in terms of bract color, but the leaves on my plants from both sources are a uniform gray. Coincidentally, I am growing out some hybrids between this sp. and flavorosea and, at this stage (4-6"/10-15 cm), there general aspect is intermediate between parents.

Good luck,

J

Mike at this point of growth your plant could also be
Ae dealbata. When it blooms will be the test unless the source you got it from has bloomed it

Thanks for in the inputs. I think I obviously won't know for sure until we see a bloom. The tubular shape is what is really throwing me off. I can't seem to find any great matches just browsing through FCBS.

The nursery is in Ecuador and I'm pretty sure that they only grow native plants. I searched FCBS for Ae. from Ecuador and nothing jumped out at me. Their website has a picture of what they are calling Ae. manzanaresiana, but it only shows the bloom. Who knows if that is even what I received.

Hopefully it will bloom for me sometime. Watch this space!

Here is a link that might be useful: Ecuagenera: Ae. manzanaresiana

Looking at their website, your plant looks just like the nudicaulis they offer.

You're right! I'll have to email them and see what's up.