XVI International Botanical Congess

The genus Tillandsia includes ca. 474 species distributed in tropical and warm-temperate America. For Mexico there have been reported 177 species, 11 (62.84%) of them endemic to the country. In the genus there are some groups of species with problems of taxonomic delimitation which need careful revision. The Tillandsia plumosa Baker complex includes seven taxa, all endemic to Mexico and distributed mainly in the central-south portion of the country. As a result of an integrative study of the vegetative and reproductive morphology, mainly the floral and phenological characters, and the palinological, anatomical, ecological and phytogeographical data as well as a phenetic analysis, it is proposed the subgenus Elebesmithia Espejo & López- Ferrari, and the status of the species are clarified.