Guzmania wittmackii
Guzmania wittmackii is a large bromeliad, about 80 cm tall in flower, from the wet premontane and cloud forests of the western Andes of southern Colombia and Ecuador. Its tall inflorescence carries red to pink or magenta bracts and white flowers, and it is a parent of many commercial Guzmania hybrids. It wants warm-to-intermediate, humid, bright-shaded conditions with water in its central cup.
Where it grows wild
Specimen labels describe it as an epiphyte on trees in wet premontane forest, cloud forest and riparian secondary forest, often at forest edges and even on trees at pasture margins. Well-known sites include the Mindo cloud forest and Reserva Maquipucuna in Pichincha, Ecuador, and Reserva Natural La Planada in Nariño, Colombia.
Herbarium specimens range from 50 to 3325 m, but most are at 850–1450 m, median about 1120 m (64 specimens with elevation). A Colombian source gives 1050–1830 m.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
Grow Guzmania wittmackii? Add it to a free garden and its full profile opens. Pro opens all 38,374 profiles in the library, plants and fungi.
More Guzmania
Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 2.0 licence, unmodified.