Ha ha, what's your 'working theory', that it is wholly unnatural to grow tillandsias from seed? He he. Sorry, I'm just still jealous that I haven't had any sprout yet (even if successful at that, then I'll probably be jealous when I can't get them to grow). But what are your thoughts? Something on growth habit or...?

I would imagine it would be pretty rare for someone to come across usneoides sprouted in the wild...talk about a needle in a haystack!

Exactly my point. This old photo shows an entire seed capsule that sprouted just one seed for me, but with roots! Uncle Derek Says has a nice article concerning it but I need to take it further.

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Greg , I sent unc some pics of a very good seed set on usenoides growing at a mates place in sub-tropical Childers .
He has laced much of his 20 acres of coastal Banksia scrub with it . Told me he could easily collect a cubic meter .

I wish we had some around here so I could take a look but you don't find much of it in southeast Florida. Of course I've seen it plenty of times farther north but never noticed any signs of flowering. Then again I think the flowers are tiny and I wasn't really looking for them.

I think that stuff just spreads via birds!

"I think that stuff just spreads via birds!"
That's what I'm trying to ascertain Mike, are the large garlands you see in the bayous and such just the creation of bird-scattered plants? We've seen many photos of various Tillandsia species as seedlings but not SM. In facto, my shot of the usneoides root kinda shocked Uncle D. What I need are some folks that live in SM country to go into the field and check the trees closely for seedlings.
'roid, would any of yer mates be up to that?

It would be spread by birds as I have seen bird nests lined with it.

OK, so since usneoides is probably the most prolific Tillandsia, where are all the seedlings?

Not that this helps, but it's very easy to find T. recurvata seedlings in liveoak trees. The plants usually grow in colonies. I'd be surprised if the same wasn't true for usenoides, but tills are full of surprises.

Recurvata is an easy plant to germinate probably due to the fact that the seed pods are usually held out away from the body of the plant and can disperse their seeds much easier.

Its easy to imagine that it is at an in-between stage of evolution. It's prolific enough with vegetative propagation to survive just fine, but technically still has the functioning sexual reproductive parts. Did you actively try to (pollinate and) sprout this one Gonzer? And you did or didn't remove the seed from the pod? I've dug around my SM to see if seeds formed from selfing, but haven't really found any. Do the SM seeds have good and fluffy tufts like other tillies?

Yeah, SM's seeds are just like other species. I didn't pollinate that plant, for flowers that small you need the hands of a brain surgeon. The pod had split so I glued it to the cork. Chance just happened to be smiling on me for it to germinate. Normally (all the time) I wouldn't try to get into the technical end of Tillandsia reproduction but this is just bugging the snot outta me!

Gonzer: I'm in Dana Point and just today I noticed my usenoides is flowering. Definitely never saw that before. You're right, the flowers are tiny.

1tecato, yep, they're small aren't they. How IS the land of Harpoon Henry's, Salt Creek, and Doho these days?

Yes and no about this Tillasia being spread by birds. This plant is absolutely common here in Brazil. He only thrives where there is plenty of light and wind and umidity in the air. Wind brings food to the plant. So it needs aeretion, ventilation and umidity a very umid atmosphere. Some birds nests in the plant making hanging basckets like structures that are reiforced with hairs from horseôs maine and other mamals.
Seed are spread by the wind and never by any bird. It is a nonsense in some areas. It is said the air to be good in the areas where this plant grows,unpolluted areas. Here it is like the eight Egypician biblical plague. Infests any tree that may present some nude bark. Nude ôcause this garatees light. A leaved brach condems the Till. to shade and in shade it doesnôt live.

Well, what do you know....when I was out picking around in the yard I thought I would look for some flowers on my Spanish Moss...and looky what I found, some seedlings with some roots!
-andy

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Oops, guess its kind of hard to pick out the roots in those photos. I took another one that focuses on the actual root a little better. Interesting that the seeds were still connected to the mother plant with the stringy fibers rather than being spread by the fiber fluff. Makes sense in that the conditions are more likely going to be good to grow when still attached to the mother clump. Sorry my camera isn't a little better. Hard to do a good macro shot without manual focus.

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Nice shots Andy. You should send those off to Derek Butcher, he may want to add them to his site article on SM.