Family: Bromeliad
Sub-Family: Tillandsioideae:
Genus: Tillandsia
Sub-Genus:Anoplophytum
Native distribution: Tillandsia aeranthos is found from Uruguay, to Argentina Paraguay and Brazil where it grows as an epiphyte on trees often bordering rivers and also found growing in colonies on rock near sea level.
Habit: It is a small branching, caulescent plant about 22cm high that produces few roots but forms a colony that hold the plant has to the support
Foliage: broad but quickly tapering leaves. These concave leaves are quite stiff and grayish green in colour with a slight purple tint.
Flowers: T. aeranthos flowers in spring, around November in Melbourne. The inflorescence spike extends above the leaves which has purple rose bracts and about 5-20 small blue violet flowers
Seed: The plant produces an elongated seed pod that takes about 4 months to ripen - these hard cases split open to expose aerial seed that is dispersed on the wind. The seeds ripen around February in Melbourne.
Pups: While somewhat similar to T.bergeri the plant produces less pups.
Cultivation: Tillandsia aeranthos is a relatively easy plant to grow. Make sure it has good air circulation and can dry quickly. Do not expose wet leaves to hot sun as this can burn off the trichome cells.
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: In most situations it is a prolific grower and is often available
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