Speakers and Presentations

Graeme Barclay

The Virtual Explorer

In his keynote presentation, Graeme will provide an update on the BSI Cultivar Register and Bromeliad Species Database and then tell the story of “Rediscovering an elusive bromeliad in habitat… from my home computer!”

Graeme Barclay is the new Registrar of the BSI Bromeliad Cultivar Register (BCR) and also Manager of the Bromeliad Species Database (BSD) – a public resource he co-designed that was released on the BSI website in 2022. He is also the Assistant Editor of the BSI Journal, a past two term BSI Board Director for the New Zealand region and the current President of the Bromeliad Society of New Zealand in his third term.

Graeme has grown bromeliads for over twenty years, purely as a hobbyist, the last half focusing on building and maintaining a large species collection of many Bromeliaceae genera in West Auckland, New Zealand. His passion is growing species as they would grow in habitat, experimenting with different growing methods and positions to achieve optimum cultivation results in the cooler local climate. He is also an active hybridizer of Neoregelia and Vriesea and a regular contributor of species and cultivation articles for the BSNZ monthly ‘Bromeliad’ Journal and BSI Journal.

Dr. David Benzing

From Brochinia to Tillandsia: What family Bromeliaceae can tell us about how plants evolve

Bromeliaceae, although not a particularly large family, is remarkably diverse in terms of where its members live, how they live, and under what kinds of growing conditions they live. Consequently, many of its species have been the subjects of fruitful scientific research into a variety of aspects of plant ecology, evolution, and operation. My presentation will focus on several key adaptations that allow its members to occupy a range of exceptionally challenging habitats.The topics covered and examples provided are chosen to illustrate how plant evolution is more conservative than often thought, and that instead of creating novelty at every turn, it fashions the new from what’s old. More specifically, it progresses by refining and repurposing existing structures and functions to more effectively deal with stresses such as drought, exploit opportunities, an example being the colonization of forest canopy habitats, and much more.

David’s Ph.D in botany was earned at the University of Michigan. He is retired from Oberlin College as Emeritus Robert S. Danforth Professor of Biology. He remains a Senior Research Associate at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota Florida. His research interests and publications concern the adaptive biology and evolution of epiphytic vascular plants, the emphasis being Bromeliaceae and Orchidaceae. David published four books and co-authored a fifth and about 70 peer reviewed reports and chapters in journals and technical monographs. His own monograph published in 2000 titled Bromeliaceae: Profile of an adaptive radiation has been cited in more than 1000 peer reviewed papers and books.

Dylan Hannon

Conserving Bromeliads with Provenance

The term “plant conservation” can indicate different, sometimes confusing meanings. Carefully managed horticulture can help conserve rare plants. Protecting natural areas can also conserve plants, but in a different, mostly unrelated way. For plant collectors, meaningful conservation involves the selection of cultivated plants that are rare in cultivation and have provenance (known wild origin). These qualifications are filters indicating the relatively higher value, beyond aesthetic or commercial interest, of a particular species or accession.

Dylan was raised in Southern California, where he developed an early interest in a wide range of plant groups. Both his mother and grandmother helped nurture an avid appreciation of plants. He has worked for over 25 years in the botanical garden field, starting as a research assistant to Dr. Thomas B. Croat at Missouri Botanical Garden, working on the taxonomy of Araceae (aroids). He spent nine years as Plant Propagator at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, CA, and has been Curator of Conservatory Collections at The Huntington Botanical Gardens since 2003. In between these posts Dylan worked in the wholesale cactus industry and for consulting firms as a field botanist in the San Diego area. His main interest is the propagation and distribution of cultivated plants, particularly material of known wild origin. These themes run through Dylan’s writing, lectures and plant collecting. He is blessed to have his supportive wife Antoinette by his side.

Dr. Rachel Jabaily

Undergraduate Research Adventures with Bromeliads

Dr. Jabaily will discuss how she had engaged undergraduates in the process of science through numerous bromeliad research projects, many using live plants from the horticultural community. Dr. Jabaily will showcase her student’s work on bromeliad life history and systematics, talk about their journeys, highlight her new collaborative research grant work on bromeliads and nitrogen, and discuss how you can help get more students into science through bromeliads.

Dr. Jabaily is a professor at Colorado College, an undergraduate serving liberal arts college. She completed her PhD studying the evolution of Puya (Bromeliaceae) and currently has a National Science Foundation research grant with colleagues to study the impact of nitrogen limitation on bromeliad growth, photosynthesis, and nutrient cycling.

Jeffrey Kent

Collecting, Planning and Creating the Penultimate Guzmania for the World Market

In his presentation, Jeffrey illustrates what the markets of Europe, China, and the USA demanded as Kent’s Bromeliads grew from selling tens of thousands bromeliads to selling over 25 million plants annually throughout the world. He will incorporate his modest success in the hybridization of several outstanding Guzmanias, including the Voila group in Europe; Brimstone in China, and the larger assortments they specialized in here in the USA. Finally, Jeffrey will talk briefly about which countries he traveled to and why he chose them in search of the special clones used to produce his hybrids.

Jeffrey has been growing and breeding Bromeliads since he graduated from UCSD in 1973. His father, Leonard Kent founded Kent’s Bromeliads, he and his brother Larry incorporated Kent’s Bromeliad Nursery Inc. in 1975. They built a 10,000 square foot greenhouse. When his third brother Michael joined them, the business grew rapidly. By the year 2005 they had over 1 million square feet of computer controlled greenhouses in full production at 4 locations in the northern part of San Diego County. The business continued until it was sold in 2023.

Today, he continues to consult for the new owners of Kent’s Bromeliad Nursery, Inc. as well as for Anthura B.V. in Bleiswick, Netherlands. Over this time period, he served on the Board of Directors of the San Diego Natural History Museum for 8 years. Jeffrey also wrote a section of the book The Plant while he helped to raise 3 wonderful children. He also managed to make over 50 plant collecting expeditions to South America: Costa Rica, Panama (2 times), Peru (7 times), Colombia (10 times) Brazil (4 times) and Ecuador (30 times). His first hybrid was Guzmania ‘Irene’ named after his mother. Jeffrey has created over 10,000 hybrids, most of which were sold in our assorted mixes to their big box store clients. Today, Jeffrey still travels to Europe two times a year to also consult for Anthura B.V. after they purchased his species collection and another 200 unproven hybrids. In the past, Jeffrey’s hybrids were distributed by Deroose plants of Belgium and also by Bunnick B.V. of the Netherlands.

José Manzanares

Join me on a journey into the rainforest in search of bromeliads

Over the past 42 years living in Ecuador, I have embarked on countless expeditions into the rainforest, devoting much of my time and energy to searching for bromeliads. My main goal has been to photograph these remarkable plants in their natural habitat and to collect specimens for the herbarium—a task that demands patience, keen observation, and often overcoming challenges such as rugged terrain, torrential rains, and unexpected encounters with local wildlife. These experiences have enabled significant progress in the project “Jewels of the Jungle: Bromeliaceae of Ecuador,” an initiative aimed at documenting and celebrating the rich diversity of these fascinating plants throughout the country.

During this presentation, I hope to provide an introductory glimpse into the world of bromeliads: their extraordinary range of forms, colors, and unique adaptations; the various habitats where they thrive—from the humid slopes of the Andes to the warm canopy of the Amazon; and to share some personal anecdotes from my journeys through Ecuador’s lush forests. Each expedition has revealed new corners of the jungle and deepened my appreciation for the richness and fragility of these ecosystems, as well as the vital importance of conserving them for future generations. My wish is that this journey inspires you to value biodiversity and to immerse yourself, even if only for a moment, in the magic of the Ecuadorian rainforest and its living treasures.

Born in Spain and a longtime resident of Ecuador, Jose Manzanares began his Bromeliad journey at the age of 10 when his father showed him Tillandsias attached to the trunk of a tree in Barcelona. Since that time he has been learning, searching, discovering, naming, writing, photographing and researching Bromeliads. Currently, he is working on Volume 3 of “Bromeliaceae of Ecuador, Jewels of the Jungle: Subfamily Tillandsioideae”. It is based on extensive DNA studies being done by Drs. Barfuss and Till at the University of Vienna. Jose Manzanares has published more than 50 new species from Ecuador and Peru within the genera Guzmania, Tillandsia, Racinaea, Pitcairnia, and Puya. He has prepared more than 8,000 herbarium specimens. His lecture presentations have taken him around the world.

Andy Siekkinen

Andy Siekkinen is an independent botanist studying the genus Hechtia over the past 15+ years. He has traveled extensively throughout Mexico not only searching for Hechtia, but also any other bromeliads or interesting plants. As his botanical training was in plant systematics, his philosophy is that every line of evidence should be considered. This ranges from the newest genetic sequencing methods, time in the field, traditional ‘old school’ anatomical work, Scanning Electron Microscopy, and even growing the plants and creating hybrids.

Although he was already a trained scientist (nanoparticle chemistry), Andy came into botany from horticulture. After moving to San Diego, California in 2007, a coworker gave him his first bromeliad, a Neoregelia marmorata. Since then, his bromeliad collection has grown to be large and diverse. Its composition primarily guided by what will do well in the xeric conditions of southern California’s Mediterranean climate, but also heavily influenced by the off-beat and less popular genera. His collection is notable for Hechtia, Deuterocohnia, Hohenbergia, Billbergia, Orthophytum, the ‘Cucullatanthus’ group, and Tillandsia. He also runs Andy’s Bromeliads on the side where he has introduced several new species to cultivation and is actively hybridizing in many genera.

Andy is a past President of the San Diego Bromeliad Society and former Director for the Western region on the BSI Board of Directors. Andy has presented at two World Bromeliad Conferences, an Australasian Bromeliad Conference, international scientific conferences, the Huntington Succulent Symposium, and many cactus & succulent and bromeliad societies across the country.