[1][2] It can be found growing on sandstone outcrops (inselbergs) of the Fouta Djallon highlands in Middle Guinea.

[3] Its specific epithet feliciana commemorates Henri Jacques-Félix [es] (1907–2008), the French botanist who first collected it.

In 1937, he discovered the plants growing on the steep rocks of Mount Gangan, near Kindia, in the former French Guinea.

[6] The divergence between this species and its closest relative in the genus Pitcairnia occurred around 10 million years ago.

The ancestor of P. feliciana probably traversed the Atlantic Ocean as seeds dispersed by migrating birds.