Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR NOVICES AND ADDICTS - JULY 2014, 4 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone - Well the weekend's here and what a disappointment, the cold wind is still with us which doesn't make it very pleasant at all.

Shirley – Another five nice plants you've posted again, they're all nice but I just want to comment on two of them; firstly Neo. 'Apricot Nectar' which has always been one of my favourites.

A couple of years back a friend took me to an eccentric old bloke's place to look at his brom collection, and on the way he said although he encouraged people to come and look at his plants, he didn't sell or swap and he got very "crotchety" with anyone trying to convince him otherwise.

While browsing through his plants I noticed over a dozen beautiful adult plants of Neo.'Apricot Nectar'. When I asked why he kept so many plants of the same type he said because 'Joseph' was his all time favourite plant. When I said I was pretty sure it wasn't Joseph but was Neo.'Apricot Nectar', he said, “Oh that's just its registered name; Joseph is what I've always called it”.

When I asked the reason, he asked if I was familiar with the story of “Joseph and his coat of many colours” in the Bible. I said yes, but asked what that had to do with it and he said he called it that because of all the colour changes it created on its journey from a pup to an adult plant reminded him of Joseph and his coat of many colours and so all his plants were called JOSEPH…... Not Neo.'Joseph' or Neo. variety 'Joseph'; all the name tags showed the same name, just JOSEPH.

Recently I mentioned Jack Koning's theory of how the pollen parent influences the colour of its seedlings, but your plant of Neo 'Heart Music' x 'Grace Darling' seems to contradict that theory as your seedling is showing nice radial red lining and yet according to the name, it's the seed parent (Heart Music) which has this feature. The only answer I can give is either Jack’s theory is not always right or that the name of the cross was written incorrectly by the breeder. Some hybridisers don't care in what sequence they write the names of the parents but the names should always be written with the seed parent first and the pollen parent second, this is the international standard and they’re the only explanations I can give why that seedling has the radial red markings. Whatever the reason, it's still a magnificent looking plant and you've grown it very well.

Colleen – What you say about the nursery selling a plant with the unregistered name of Neo. 'Crackling Red', doesn’t really surprise me; Wholesale Bromeliads of Australia are also selling the same plant with that name. There are quite a few brom’s getting around with names that are unregistered and they have been in circulation for years; in fact one day when you have some spare time (Ha! Ha!) and can go through the FCBS comparing names with the BCR you will find quite a few on there that aren’t registered.

Some of the fair dinkum growers will go out of their way to register some of these unregistered plants while others couldn’t give a toss and just perpetuate the problem by selling them with the unregistered name. What they are doing is perfectly legal as there’s no law against it. In fact some nurseries will purposely alter a name to make it more attractive to the buyer. Aechmea gamosepala is an example; it didn’t sell all that well until its name was changed to the “Matchstick Brom” and there are many others which have undergone a name embellishment just to suit the sales aspect of it all. All we can do is to write the correct name on our plants if we know it.

About your Alc. Imperialis Rubra, I too bought a plant with the same name at Bunnings about five years ago. It got to about five feet across before it flowered and still the foliage was all green and not the rubra colour I had expected. Now whether they were tissue cultured plants "gone wrong" or seedlings from a selfing I don’t know but I do know it was green and not what I expected.

Alc.‘Silver Plum’ is in fact a select clone from a selfing of Alc. Imperalis but it’s not recorded whether or not the parent was straight Alc. Imperalis or Imperalis rubra (which I suspect it was). Alc Imperalis itself is variable with foliage from grey/green through to rubra in colour and you can see examples of the variation in the pic’s on the FCBS Photo Index.

As for Alc. imperalis vinicolour; its name is just Alc. Vinicolor and it is a species. This too is variable in foliage colour with a range between green with some rubra markings on the leaf tips right through to all rubra in colour. There are also examples of the variables on the FCBS Photo Index as well.

I’m very envious of you getting some of your gardening done, I started to do a bit of watering this morning early and at about 8.00am that rotten cold wind came up again and my hands nearly dropped off so I’m inside now typing this instead.

Breeindy – Gee we haven’t seen you for ages and now your back just to give us the bad news that you’re getting out of brom’s; what a disappointment, as you do grow such nice plants, but then I suppose we all have interests that change and your love of dogs has overruled your love of brom’s.

It’s very interesting that over the years I’ve noticed that most brom growers seem to rotate between five different hobbies; orchid growing; bird breeding, fish breeding, cacti growing and fern growing and almost all have either dogs or cats as a pet. It just shows we’re interested in all things from Mother Nature and goes to show what nice people we all are doesn’t it?

Hello also to Teresa, Trish, Jean, Wendy, Jen, Tash, Ian and our friend (I think it was Tropic Breeze) from up near Darwin who we haven't heard from for quite a while now, and any others I may have missed, we look forward to hearing from you all again, (but not to tell us that you’re getting out of brom’s).

That’s about it from me today and I’ll finish with a few more old file pic’s of Alcantareas just for a change and seeing they seem to be a favourite of Colleen. The pic's aren't mine they are ones sent to me from other Brom Friends who don't mind me sharing them with others. Pic.1 is Alc. Imperialis (Green Form), Pic.2 is Alc. Imperialis Rubra, Pic.3 is Alc. Imperialis Rubra ‘Ajax’, Pic. 4 is Alc. Imperialis ‘Skotak’ and Pic.5 is Alc. Imperialis Rubra flowers

All the best, Nev.