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graykiwi

Aechmea 'Albino Ensign'

graykiwi
13 years ago

Hi All,

I took a picnic trip this weekend with the family to the Wintergardens in Auckland City Domain (our central park), to check out the sub-tropical and tropical greenhouses and the fernery. Not expecting to see anything TOO exciting as far as broms go, I walked into the tropical house and saw something quite unusual that made me remove my sunglasses in a flash. There amongst a mediocre display of hybrid Neos and a few large Aechmea, Alcantarea and Vriesea species, was a pot with a single Aechmea orlandiana 'Ensign', that had decided to sport an almost pure white pup !!..

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It looked quite healthy and showing little signs of albino stress or marking etc. The minimal green variegation it has on the lower leaves look to be supporting it with enough chlorophyl at this stage, so it might well survive ??...maybe not once it's removed from mum though??...who knows ??!

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The white centre leaves were SO white and shiny, they almost looked fake like plastic!!...in fact it was so 'unreal looking', I had to peer suspiciously under the leaves to make sure the stolons and roots were the real deal and not some gardener's little joke...yup, it's certainly 100% alive!!

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You can see the 'Ensign' red banding just starting to occur on the undersides of the leaves...Not sure if this albinism is that common with 'Ensign', as I haven't seen one like this mentioned before, but guess it has probably occured elsewhere ??

Anyone seen anything similar and had it survive after it has had to live on its own and reproduce ?

Cheers

Graeme

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