Tillandsia heliconioides
Tillandsia heliconioides is a widespread lowland epiphyte of humid rainforest, found from southern Mexico through Central America to Amazonia. It is a soft, green-leaved tillandsia, named for its flattened, Heliconia-like flower spike. It comes from warm, wet, shaded forest, so it needs more humidity and less light than the grey, sun-loving air plants.
Where it grows wild
An epiphyte in wet lowland and foothill forest (Flora do Brasil lists it from rainforest in Acre, Rondônia, Pará and Amazonas). Colombian labels describe dense tall terra firme forest and fragmented forest in the Orinoquia foothills. It grows on trunks and branches within the forest rather than in the exposed crown.
GBIF records with an elevation run from sea level to about 1,300 m, with a median of about 250 m.
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