Bromeliad Auction and Billbergia Amoena

A few nights ago I attended a Bromeliad auction. What an amazing array of interesting, unusual plants.

Small representation of what was available! Wow!

There were so many South American species I’d never seen before, but this one REALLY stood out:

Billbergia amoena SU262

B. amoena SU262 is a larger hybrid of the endemic Brazilian species B. amoena. At maturity, SU262 measures 20″ tall x 18″ wide, producing an erect showy inflorescence with rose colored bracts. The bracts in the photo are a few weeks away from revealing blue tipped green flowers similar to those in the photo below:

Typical Billbergia Bloom

A unique feature of the pendulous billbergia inflorescence is the way the bracts create an umbrella to cover the flowers’ stamens/pistils. This protective mechanism prevents pollen from being washed or blown away before insects can spread it to other flowers.

Billbergia amoena is surprisingly hardy in the landscape, able to withstand temperatures between 26-28F with minimal damage. In Zones 9+ planting in full sun is ill-advised due to potential leaf burn. Morning or dappled sun works best.

Another interesting fact: Billbergias are equally at home mounted in trees or planted terrestrially (or in pots!), but good air circulation is key in all 3 environments. When the inflorescence is nearly spent, pups form around the base of the “mother’ plant eventually forming large, clumping colonies.

Before I close, a few other photos from the auction:

Aechmea farinosa conglomerata

Aechmea kertesziae

Neoregelia “Carnival de Rio”

Until next time…

🙂 🙂 🙂

Wildflowers of the Rainforest (havehest.wordpress.com)
Weekly Photo Challenge: Color (smallhousebiggarden.wordpress.com

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SmallHouseBigGarden

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July 9, 2013

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Life at Big Garden

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Billbergia Windii, a most beautiful bromeliad!

Billbergia Windii is one of the oldest hybrids in the bromeliad family, the result of crossing B. Nutans with B. Decora in the 1870s at the National Botanic Garden of Belgium.

As you see in the picture, strappy yellow/green leaves grow tall and tubular, creating water collecting “tanks” in the plant’s center. Throughout the year, organic detritus builds up in these “micro-oceans,” feeding and prepping the plant for bloom time.

B. Windii’s magnificent flowers appear overnight (literally!) as a pendulous inflorescence of rosy-pink bracts. Within a few days, long yellow and pink flowers–margined by blue and green–emerge from the tip:

Here’s a closer look:

Hard to imagine, there’s more to come! Each inflorescence takes a full week to open, with the perianth rollback signalling the final stage:

Although B. windii is an epiphyte, it grows well in soil, too. With Florida’s intense summers, morning sun and shade in the afternoon keeps the colors vibrant without risking leaf burn. In other parts of the country, full sun is recommended.

To learn more about billbergias and other bromeliads visit the Internationall Bromeliad Society Journal Archives.

Until next time…..

🙂 🙂 🙂