Tillandsia caput-medusae
A grey, fuzzy air plant whose thick, twisting leaves grow out of a swollen, bulb-like base, giving it its Medusa's-head name. It grows as an epiphyte on the bark of trees in seasonally dry tropical deciduous forest and oak woodland from Mexico to Panama, where a long dry season alternates with summer rains. Ants often nest in the hollow spaces of the bulb-like base. It is one of the easier tillandsias to grow if it gets bright light, good air and time to dry out.
Where it grows wild
Bark of trees and shrubs in dry tropical deciduous and semi-deciduous forest, dry oak forest and scrub, gallery forest, and disturbed secondary growth along roadsides; recorded hosts include oaks (Quercus). Many host trees drop their leaves in the dry season, leaving the plants in bright, dry, breezy conditions for months.
Our six records with elevation fall at 445–1252 m (median 869 m); herbarium labels extend this from near sea level (about 12–15 m in Mexico) to about 1970 m in a ravine.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
Grow Tillandsia caput-medusae? Add it to a free garden and its full profile opens. Pro opens all 38,374 profiles in the library, plants and fungi.
More Tillandsia
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 3.0 licence, unmodified.