Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR MARCH ....2014, 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Well the trip to the dentist went well yesterday with the problem all fixed up and what's more it never cost me a cent as my little Chinese dentist who I've been going to for over thirty years said he was happy to just take what the Medical Fund paid. He always treats me this way, even with expensive things like caps or crowns and yet I know of others in the same fund with the same amount of cover who go to other dentists and there's always a gap fee to pay; sometimes a very substantial one,I guess that's just called GREED!

Needless to say when I got home the day was half gone so instead of working on the "reno." I spent the afternoon potting up some Ae. orlandiana pups; so I can now cross another well over due job off the list of things to do.

Cody – I hope your Dad's horse delivered the foal OK and you weren't too cold while it was all taking place. I'll bet the little foal wanted to get back inside mum when it felt how cold it was.

Ian – Thanks to your pic's I've just found a name for a NOID I've had for years. I bought this strange spotted looking Aechmea at the markets years ago just because it looked a bit different to anything else I have. It's grown well over the years and I've taken off several pups, but it's never flowered; I didn't really worry about this as I liked it for its foliage, but now you've given me a name and I've been able to look it up I see that it also has a terrific inflorescence as well. What's more it come from a pretty unusual crossing of Ae. fendleri x Ae. orlandiana and no doubt it's the orlandiana that give it the spotted pattern. I guess it's time to try some different light levels and try to get it to flower for me.

Although I've seen some nice pic's of Neo 'Maya' when it's in full colour, it just doesn't seem to perform very well down here; and it's not just me either, as I know of several other growers who have got rid of it due to the “wishy washy” colouring. I guess it needs that good northern light to do really well.

Although your Neo.'Tangerine' is past its prime and losing colour, the “up side” is that soon the new pups will be poking up their heads getting ready to start another life cycle.

In your last picture, what's the very tall plant with the nice silvery/grey/green leaves which has obviously fallen over because it's top heavy? It seem like you're growing them so well they are “jumping” out of their pots.

Wendy – My nudicaulis collection consists of the usual ones such as, 'Zebra', 'Aequalis', 'Costa Rica', 'Xavanthe', variety aureorosea, variety cuspidata, variety flavomarginata, 'Giant' (unreg.) and several NOIDS.

All of the lighter coloured ones without markings on their leaves are hybrids from seed I harvested from 'Aequalis' a few years back. I had nothing to do with the pollination so it was “Mother Nature's Little Helpers” who were responsible. The year I harvested the seed pods, I think every flower had been pollinated and according to all of the “international forum experts”, this was not uncommon, as this particular plant was a well known “selfer”. Seeing it was a particular favourite of mine I decided to sow the seed and get some more for stock to sell as it's always a popular plant.

The germination rate was so good I threw away three containers of seedlings as I think every seed germinated. I thinned them out and grew on about fifty or so of the strongest plantlets but as they grew so did my disappointment as the leaf colour remained without the typical 'Aequalis' leaf markings.

The leaves were all plain colours ranging from pale green through to ones with a pinkish tinge through them as well as a couple which were an interesting silvery/pale green colour with pale barring on the underside. They grew rapidly and it wasn't long before they flowered with a range of various coloured flowers none of which were the bright yellow usually associated with nudicaulis.

The form of the inflorescent appeared more like a cross between that of a naudicaulis and a gamosepala with some having the typical brightly coloured bracts of the naudicaulis and others without them. As the plants grew they quickly filled the pots with multiple pups and it was then I realised that although they weren't what I had wanted, they may still have something to offer.

The main distinguishing feature of a typical nudicaulis i.e. the “thumb indent” at the leaf base was absent on every plant so I knew they had to be hybrids, but just what was the other parent? When I thought about it, gamosepala was the only other Aechmea in flower in my yard at that time, and knowing full well how it likes to breed with almost everything, I'm now pretty sure that it was the other parent.

After giving away dozens of plants, the ones I have now finished up with are plants with plain coloured leaves of various shades which look quite nice when grown in a hanging position as the best leaf colour is seen when viewed from below and personally I think it is this feature which over rules the uninteresting flowers.

As for my orlandianas, well there are several named varieties such as 'Dark Knight', 'Dark Form', 'Touch-a-Pink', 'Stain Glass' and others I just can't bring to mind at present, but the Bower Birds stole all of the name tags so now they are all just Ae. orlandiana or Ae. orlandiana var. NOID and I have to wait until they are all fully coloured up again to try and sort out the “identity mess” and as you know the colours in orlandianas are quite variable so this might be a bigger job than it seems.

That's a good point you make about the bit of log in the pond and it was only the day before when I saw the frogs swim to the far side of the pond and drag themselves out over the edge that I realised that if the water level was down a bit, they wouldn't be able to do this, so now I know what the first job on the agenda is this morning.

I was surprised when you said the plant at the back was a helicoid type as any I have which are of that type are all tubular shapes and grey/green in colour Violacea, Zebrina and Rosea are three that come to mind (For anyone not knowing what a helicoid type is, its a type of Billbergia where the petals of the flowers are wound up and look like a coiled up watch spring see Pic.1) The seed capsules on these types usually look different to the normal Billbergia capsules as they much bigger and are a silvery colour and hang on the plant for some time and are another attractive feature of the plant (Pic.2) The third difference is that I have found they always seem to germinate faster and grow quicker than the usual types of Billbergia seed.

Time to go again and today's Pic.1 is of a typical helicoid flower and in Pic.2 the silvery looking bit behind the flower is the seed capsule just starting to swell, eventually it will look like a rough silvery ball as wide as it is long. Pic.3 is a view of some of my Billbergias on the bench in the background and hanging on the left Pic.4 and 5 are a couple of nice variegated Neo's I took while on my garden ramble the other morning.

All the best, Nev.