An Air Plant in Bloom

[beetleman]

This is Tillandsia durati. Tillandsia are members of the bromeliad family and are commonly called Air plants because they do not require soil to grow(also called Epiphytes) . They usually are attached to trees or rocks and get all their nutrition from whatever falls on them from above. They are not Parasitic. They are not the best looking plants but they are strange enough for me to have a collection of (last count) 20 different ones. Most Tillandsia, once they bloom, will start growing "PUPs", small offshoots, and the parent plant will slowly die. The flower head in the picture is 3 inches high and the full plant is almost 20" tall and looks like a bunch of almost dead curly grasslike leaves (inset). The flowers are "VERY" fragrant on this species, like expensive perfume. This is another picture of an air plant I posted in the forums.
(Tillandsia ionantha )

[cactuspic]

Doug, you must be very excited. I love tillandisias. Many are very undemanding and reward you with unique, long lasting,and beutiful bracts and flowers.

Neat photo.

Irwin

[Ken Ramos]

Neat photo there Doug. My youngest sister raises these things, has them all over the house. Some, not all, are even in a vase of water by themselves with gold fish swimming around the roots.

[JoanYoung]

Wonderful pics Doug. I have never seen an airplant here which gets flowers. They are all just leaves.

[DaveW]

Nice picture Doug. In the old days before present international conventions a specific name derived from a person used to be written with a capital letter and others with a lower case one, but now the "Code" say all generic names start with a capital letter, but specific names are to be written in lower case whether named after people or not, and the name italicised.

Hence Tillandsia Durati should be Tillandsia durati if we are being pedantic. In fact the USA was one of the last countries that dropped the former practice of using a capital letter for specific names derived from people and came into line with the rest of the world. Zoological nomenclature is broadly similar.

http://www.anbg.gov.au/chah/avh/help/names/index.html

http://www.thewildflowersociety.com/wfs ... cation.htm

The underlining convention mentioned in the above link was mainly intended for typewritten script because most typewriters did not have the facility to write italics. Underlining a word I believe is the signal to printers to set in italics when composing for print.

DaveW

[beetleman]

Thank you Dave. I just get lazy sometimes. I did the scientific name correctly in the post I linked to in this post but I did not do it in this post. Will correct it right away And thank you for the history.