Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS GOING INTO WINTER 2015, 2 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Well the boys had a “ball” at the museum. I say boys because just as we were leaving, my grandson’s little cousin came to visit so we took him as well. They spent all morning there riding on the steam train and the miniature train, as well as sitting on an old hand trike in the museum building.

It’s happened again; this morning when I posted, the only two other posts were from Jean and Teresa, yet when I popped back in again just now I see there’s one from Brian also which didn’t show this morning even though it was posted before mine…….Seems the DG Gremlins are still in my computer.

So I’m sorry Brian, the reason I didn’t answer your question was that I didn’t see it until just now.

To answer your question, “if there was a clump of albino pups ( if possible) and the mother dies, would all pups die as well? The answer is yes they would die.

The reason being that all plants need chlorophyll to survive and albinos don’t have any. Chlorophyll is the green pigment that gives most plants their colour and enables them to carry on the process of photosynthesis (allowing plants to absorb energy from light)

Albinos will survive for some time while attached to the Mother plant as they are being sustained by her in much the same way that an unborn baby draws nutrient from the mother prior to birth. Usually as soon as the mother plant stars to flower, the albino pup/s will start to die as the supply of chlorophyll is cut off. The same thing also happens if the Mother plant dies.

There is an excellent description of this process with step by step pictures which can be seen at: http://www.bromeliad.org.au/news/BSA1006b.htm

The two pic’s below are of two little boys having a great time. Pic.1 is taken in the train as it leaves the station with my grandson on the left and his cousin on the right. Pic.2 shows the boys sitting on an old hand trike down in the Museum Building.

All the best, Nev.