treeguy,

You could try Rob Smythe's Canola Oil recipee below:

I have used it with great success to kill fly speck scale on Neos, Aechmeas and Billbergias - I would do a test run on a little piece of your spanish moss first though.

Rick

Here is a link that might be useful: FCBS Canola White Oil

Thanks, I'll look at that site.
I also found a page that tells how to kill scale insect pests of Bromeliads:
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/frank/bromeliadbiota/scalecontrol.htm
The site saids:
"it appears that most Tillandsia can support small populations of Orthezia tillandsiae without too much of an effect on the host plant."
But mine looks like a large population. So I might just keep this clump in a garbage bag (and selectively pull out thin strings of it to place on a tree after checking it first each time) and if I ever buy an insecticide etc. to kill all the scales, I'll do that. (I would hate for it to spread to any other non-infested clumps of it nearby.)

Unless SM is hard for you to get I'd simply bag it and throw it away. Start fresh with new plants. The same goes for T. recurvata.