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splinter1804

The birth of a flower

splinter1804
14 years ago

Hi everyone,

I just thought I'd post this interesting pic which I took on a garden visit. It is a Billbergia pyramidalis in which one of the plants had previously rotted and was removed.

In an attempt to reproduce itself, the base of the removed plant is pushing up a flower.

Ain't nature wonderful?

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All the best, Nev.

Comments (7)

  • hotdiggetydam
    14 years ago

    Mine do that frequently

  • bromadams
    14 years ago

    Here is a friend's 'Black Ice' that put out pups that flowered right away.

    {{gwi:452784}}

    {{gwi:452787}}

  • paul_t23
    14 years ago

    Nick, have you been lurking around with that Florel again?

  • bromadams
    14 years ago

    I've never been within 5 miles of that plant until yesterday.

  • splinter1804
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Hi everyone,

    Nick, the above plant is very interesting, but it just seems a waste of good pups to me. By the way, do you know if the very small pup just to the right of the largest one, put up a flower as well?

    I had a friend who once bought a Brom at the markets from a seller who told us all his plants came from a north coast wholesaler who used gas on his plants to induce flowering - This plant also put up multiple pups which flowered prematurely as well and the flowers were all deformed except for the mother plant.

    Does this happen often with plants that have been treated to induce fowering? If it does, I think I'll just let nature take it's course and do things naturally.

    I had a plant of Vr. Splendriet given to me as a gift when I was in hospital previously. The plant had come from Bunnings and I know at the time they were selling heaps of them. The inforescence was just formning, but as it grew it becamed deformed and the flowers didn't open, but just browned off and died so I removed the inflorescence.

    Just out of intesest, I was discussing this with the Bunning's horticulturalist to try and establish where the plant had originally come from, and he said that they had a "flood of them" which had come from a large north coast commercial grower and maybe that had been "gassed" to hurry up the flowering.
    The up side of this is, that the following year it eventually put up three pups which overtook the mother and they all eventually flowered in season normally. This was after we had some very cold days which caused considerable leaf damage to the origianl mother plant.

    {{gwi:438410}}

    All the best, Nev.

  • rickta66
    14 years ago

    Nev,

    Interesting post, I like pyramidalis - boring plant but very nice flower.

    I think your Vriesea looks more like Favoriet than Splendriet - check out the FCBS photos Favoriet has an orange looking flower spike like yours.

    Nick, your friends Black Ice is a pretty good looking deformity.

    Cheers,

    Rick

  • bromadams
    14 years ago

    Nev, I was told that one good sized pup was taken off and then 3 more pups came out and all three flowered and then a few more pups started to emerge.

    If you wanted to hybridize with it, I guess you could at least use the pollen.

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