Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations
Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.
Native range 20 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Belize | BLZ | SOUTHERN AMERICA |
| Bolivia | BOL | |
| Colombia | CLM | |
| Costa Rica | COS | |
| Cuba | CUB | |
| Dominican Republic | DOM | |
| Guatemala | GUA | |
| Haiti | HAI | |
| Honduras | HON | |
| Jamaica | JAM | |
| Nicaragua | NIC | |
| Panamá | PAN | |
| Puerto Rico | PUE | |
| Venezuela | VEN | |
| Florida | FLA | NORTHERN AMERICA |
| Mexico Central | MXC | |
| Mexico Gulf | MXG | |
| Mexico Northeast | MXE | |
| Mexico Southeast | MXT | |
| Mexico Southwest | MXS |
Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.
Where it actually grows measured, from 350 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 13.2 °C | 15.0 °C | 19.0 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 26.5 °C | 30.9 °C | 32.1 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,285 mm | 1,488 mm | 2,493 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 127 mm | 136 mm | 310 mm |
It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 350 research-grade observations of Tillandsia variabilis that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.
This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.
Also published as 11 synonyms
A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.
- Platystachys moritziana Beer
- Tillandsia brachypoda Baker
- Tillandsia domingensis Mez
- Tillandsia houzeaui É.Morren ex Chapm.
- Tillandsia houzeavi Morren ex Chapm.
- Tillandsia laxa Griseb.
- Tillandsia moritziana Klotzsch ex Baker
- Tillandsia polystachia var. alba Wittm.
- Tillandsia polystachya var. alba Wittm.
- Tillandsia sublaxa Baker
- Tillandsia valenzuelana A.Rich.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.
We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.