Family: Bromeliad
Sub-Family: Tillandsioideae:
Genus: Tillandsia
Sub-Genus: Phytarrhiza
Native distribution: Tillandsia crocata is from southern Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia Uruguay where it grows at altitudes of 800m to 2,600m - 2,000 ft to 8000 ft
Habit: It has a growth habit of forming loose balls of many interlacing leaves. The plant produces many displacements and agglomerations rapidly forming a clump
Foliage: Tillandsia crocata is
a true xerophyte (grows on rocks), it has small, fine leaves and forms a mass
of greeny silver stems like leaves heavily covered with silver trichomes. The leaves are about 20cm long which are gray scaly
about 15cm long, semi-cylindrical and channeled on the top surface.
Flowers: The
2-4 yellow flowers that have 3 petals are highly fragrant with a cinnamon scent and are
borne on a fine extended spike. The flowers are short open, they have confined stamens, and the petals are slightly keeled. The plants I have in Melbourne Australia flower 2 times a year. March - April
Seed:
Pups:
Cultivation: The plant is easy to grow and has withstood full sun and temperatures up to 46.7°C
Fertilization: A mist every week with Epiphyites Delight or Epsom salts during the growing season will help the plant.
( Epiphyte’s Delight fertilizer was developed for a special reason. Nitrogen promotes foliar growth. If you have Tillandsias, Orchids, or other epiphytes and you feed them, take a look at the nitrogen content. If it’s high in urea, the plants can’t use it because the urea needs a bacteria in soil to break it down into ammonia and nitrates. Since the epiphytes don’t have any soil they can’t break down the urea. It was for this reason that we had Epiphyte’s Delight formulated. It contains only ammoniacal and nitrate nitrogen which is immediately accessible and usable by the plants.)
Availability:
|
