Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR NOVICES & ADDICTS APRIL 2012, 1 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone,

Another nice day down here yesterday and at last I’ve got all of the shade house extra roof joists in place which will give me a bit more much needed hanging space.

Karen – Well now I can understand why you were in so much of a hurry to get away yesterday morning. It looks like you at least got to the sales tables before all of the nice plants had been sold as you have quite a good quality haul there.

Billbergia ‘Afterglow’ is a beautiful plant and is very appropriately named. The next pic which is shown as Neo Fosteriana ‘Perfecta’ I think is wrongly named. Firstly Neo Fosteriana is a species and isn’t variegated and I think your plant is the ever popular Neo. ‘Perfection’ or as it’s sometimes called Neo Fosperior ‘Perfection’. It is a “sport” from Neo Fosperior which was the result of a cross thought to have been between the two species Neo fosteriana and Neo spectabilis. The records say that it is a (mostly) stable sport but I know that it does on some occasions revert back to just the plain coloured of the plant it originally came from.

The other thing I know is that its colour is greatly influenced by the amount of light it is given, and if you look at the several pictures in the Photo Index at http://www.bromeliad.org.au/ which is the web site of the Bromeliad Society of Australia you’ll see what I mean.

The reason you couldn’t see much difference between Neo ‘Wild Rabbit’ and Neo ‘Groucho’ is because they are both from the same grex, which is a Chester Skotak crossing of Neo (carolinae variegated x Hannibal Lector) crossed with Neo Tiger Cub, and like Neo. ‘Wild Rabbit’, it’s an “eye catcher” also.

The other one that really catches my eye is Neo Chilli Verde. This is a particularly nice clone of that cultivar. It does vary quite a bit and some of them don’t even have the variegations. I was sold one as Neo. Chilli Verde from a very well know Australian N.S.W. Bromeliad Nursery once, and it didn’t have any variegation on it at all. I feel I was duped; as in cases such as this when the pup doesn’t carry the variegations of the mother plant it should have the letters “NOVAR” after its name to signify that the parent was variegated but this plant doesn’t carry that variegation i.e. NOVAR meaning NO VARiegation.

Finally your little mini Neo Cayene; this seems to be identical with a mini I have called Neo ‘Red Waif’ so I went into the BCR and found that like many other early hybrids that were grown here from American seed, they were given different names; one in America and one in Australia and possibly they are both the same plants with the American plant being called Red Waif and the Australian one named as Cayenne. So you see from just a few purchases you made at a show you’ve now opened up a most interesting “can of worms”.

The three pic’s in your second posting are all nice looking brom’s also and I’m not familiar with any of them. Are the first two (the radial reds) a couple of Wendy and Johnny’s seedlings and does anyone know the name of the last one?

Wendy – I don’t know Ae ‘Nigre’ so I looked it up just out of curiosity, and the records say that it is a hybrid from Ae. Nudicaulis but the other parent isn’t recorded. I don’t know of an Aechmea tillandsiodia, but there is a plant shown on the Photo Index of the FCBS http://fcbs.org/pictures.htm called Aechmea tillandsioides. It has an inflorescence with “paddles” on it similar to some Tillandsias and Vrieseas; is this the same plant you have? To answer your question, yes I would be interested in some seed please, firstly for myself and secondly for some friends.

We now have a small group of young people down here interested in growing Brom’s from seed, and as you all know it’s a bit difficult getting today’s young people interested in this sort of thing with so many other things to do. As these young people are the brom hybridizers of the future, I’m trying to maintain their interest and encourage them by providing them with various types of brom seed to grow, and any seed that’s surplus to your (or anyone else’s) requirements, I would be grateful to receive and pass on to them.

The “Pigs in Blankets” that you and Emily made look an interesting concept; are they just frankfurts wrapped in some sort of pastry and baked, I’m interested as they look like a good thing to make when our grandsons come over.

Jen – Sorry to hear you’re unwell, but like a true “Brom Trooper” I see you still managed to get a yourself a couple of bargains. Get better soon!

Now for a few more pic’s to finish. Yesterday afternoon I went for a half hour walk around my plants and took a few random pic’s which I plan to share over the next few days. It’s surprising when you can take your time to actually look at your plants; you often see something you don’t expect. An example of this is Pic 1 which is an unnamed seedling. It was from a batch of seed given to me by a friend and which the Bower Birds stole the name out of. I had quite a few of these and have been putting a couple in as “freebies” in various orders just so I don’t have to pot up so many NOIDS.

I noticed this one tucked away on the bench and wouldn’t have seen it except I spotted the flower spike sticking up. I’ll take other pic’s as it progresses but at this stage I still have no idea what it is and if anyone has any ideas, please let’s hear them.

Pic. 1 NOID seedling, Pic 2 Neo. ‘Phyllis’, Pic 3 Neo. ‘xCorreia-Araujoi’, Pic 4 Neo ‘Volcano’ and Pic 5 is another Neo. Concentrica x [Charm x Cracker Jack]

All the best, Nev.