Family: Bromeliad
Sub-Family: Tillandsioideae
Genus: Tillandsia
Sub-Genus:
Native distribution: Known as the king of air plants. The plant grows as an epiphyte on the highest branches of trees, where it receive intense lighting. It also grows on rocks in El Salvador and Mexico at elevations of 600 to 1,800ft in a temperature range from 22C to 28C.
Habit: The plant has an amazing sculptural rosette form which can reach 600mm wide, and nearly a meter high when flowering. The leaves form a bulbous base and long leaves that are wide at the bottom and curve downward in curling twisting. It is a long lived plant and can take decades to mature.
Foliage: The gray silver green leaves are intriguing. Wide at the base tapering to a point with long twisted curling leaves.
Flowers: The plant forms a large stunning inflorescence which is branched. The leaf bracts are a vibrate red, the floral bracts are chartreuse with purple tubular flower petals.
Seed:
Pups:
Cultivation: As a slow-growing plant from a warm dry habitat, in cooler situations it requires attention. Make sure the plant drys quickly after watering, tip it up side down to drain the center and it get good light. In cooler months the plant can be left upside down.
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.)
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