What source was that, Stitz? There are several Vrieseas and Werauhias that do form pups towards the center of the rosette, but hieroglyphica is not one of them, at least in my experience. They come out towards the base, similar to fosteriana, etc.

On the other hand, I've always had a hard time getting it to produce very many pups. I've never flowered one, but on the occasions I've taken a screwdriver to the center of the plant, it has resulted in giving me only one solitary pup-- possibly a second one if the mother didn't die off first, but not the customary cluster of three that I usually get with fosteriana and its hybrids. Very frustrating, not to mention surprising to me, since an old BSI Journal article about the screwdriver treatment actually used V. heiroglyphica as an illustration and showed a ring of pups circling the base of the plant! Maybe the mother will last longer if it has flowered and not been "screwed", but for me the second pup didn't start forming until after I had removed the first one.

Thank you, Lisa, for sharing your experience. I hope that Vr hieroglyphica pups form like the Vr fosteriana. I just removed the third and final fosteriana pup from mine today. What a breeze!

Below, please note that I included the requested reference. I should have included that in the first email. Sorry.

--Stitz--

Here is a link that might be useful: Vrieseas by Greg Jones

I have flowered several giant-sized hieros outside here, and grow literally hundreds of smaller plants for sale. I find that the pups do come off center well within the main rosette (a la V. splendens), rather than as free-standing offsets (a la V. fosteriana). *Yes*, they can definitely be a major pain to remove intact. My founder plants usually generate one or two pups well prior to the infl. actually forming. The most I have ever been able to remove is two (the number that the plant whose infl. I severed a couple months back currently has) and I usually find that the best method is to gradually trim away leaves from the mother plant until one can access the very base of the pups. On a large plant, a small pruning saw is useful to saw down through the base of the spent mom...do NOT try and twist them out of the center leaves when small, since you will doubtlessly be left with no plants at all for your trouble. Offsets grow very fast when happy...for reference, I can flower an offset from these old founders within 2 years of making the division. Conversely, these babies must take 8-10 years to flower from seed.

Lisa's experience appears to confirm that there are different models of this sp., depending on origin. I have noticed that my old plants that were imported in '97-'98 from Bullis and Bird Rock never flower before they are at least 4'(1.25m) across...we currently have a couple hundred 30-36" plants that were imported as seedlings from a nursery in Brazil about seven years ago that have not only proven to be even more sensitive to poor water quality than is the norm with the bromeliad (which is quite a lot!), but have also started flowering (with no pups evident) while still quite small when grown in the greenhouse. Depending on how and when they finally offset, this could have major negative implications for using them as shady landscape plants. Buyer beware...

Good luck,

J

That's interesting, Jay. Your description and the one in the article perfectly match the experience I've had with V. fenestralis, but V. hieroglyphica has been a bit different. Mine came from Kent's, either as seedlings or TC, I forget which.

I do have to correct one statement I made above, however. I went back and looked through all my old Journals for that article showing the pups around the base, and lo and behold, the photo that my mind had registered so vividly as hieroglyphica for all these years, on closer inspection turns out to have actually been a fosteriana (probably Red Chestnut)! Don't know how I could have made that mistake. It's a close-up, not labeled and there's a slight greenish tinge to the photo, but I should have recognized those markings. My bad.

At any rate, Stitz, you might want to try pollinating the flowers. You'll have to do it in the evening, and the seeds will take a while to develop and even longer to grow, but that's the only way you are going to get any numbers out of this thing.

I've taken the liberty of attaching a couple of pics of this sp. and V. gigantea in simultaneous flower in my garden last May. For reference, the span of the hieroglyphica rosette was greater than 6' (2 m). The entire infl. was successfully open-pollinated by glossophagine bats and hummingbirds, and the seed was harvested in late January 09. The two pups that I spoke of in the earlier post (not even evident yet here) are almost 30" (75 cm) across now. The gigantea is actually a massive single flowering mother in the center with two full-sized offsets. I just split this plant to salvage the pups (now 4'/1.25m across) and it took me almost an hour of BS&T to machete/saw through the granite-like root ball! This plant also yielded several manila envelopes of seed.

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Lisa, I find that if you just let fenestralis offsets be, they will eventually force their way out of the central rosette and are then easy to prise off.

I think I need a bigger back garden ;^)

J

This Vriesea hieroglyphica and also a Vr ospinae gruberi have produced flower spikes and pups. I want to encourage the growth of the pups.

Should I leave the flower spikes alone or should I remove the spikes? Is it important to the future development of the pups for the flowering process to proceed to completion?

--Stitz--

I finally removed 4 'pups' from the Vr hieroglyphica yesterday. Should I dunk the cut ends in Physan 20 or just leave 'em alone?

As I understand it, I should leave the newly severed pups to air dry for about a week before potting-up???

--Stitz--