Looks like Bert to me.

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Hey Paul,

I suspect you could be very hot to almost boiling close to your Aechmea's ID, now that it is flowering. As Lisa said in the original thread, both Cheryl Basic and Olive T. have bought and imported to Australia unnamed siblings of her Ae. correia-araujoi x 'Bert' grex. I am not aware of either Cheryl or Olive having actually imported Lisa's named hybrids of same. Two and a half years ago, Olive had several of that same cross of Lisa's growing well in her nursery. Olive has imported others of Lisa's, such as Ae. c-a x orlandiana and Ae. c-a x Canistrum seidelianum - also unnamed siblings of named hybrids - and therefore under formula versus hybrid name.

Your plant looks a dead ringer for those shown in photos below. Those photos were taken at the Olive Branch in January, '08. It is quite likely that some have started circulating around the Aussie brom traps. It also sounds like another case of only half the formula left on the label - only this time, the second half!

As we have discussed, primary hybrids are generally fairly uniform. This explains the similarity to Lisa's named cultivars of the same cross.

Need to look closely at the (almost spent) flower spikes - sorry!
Ae. correia-araujoi x 'Bert' (Lisa V.)
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Ae. correia-araujoi x 'Bert' (Lisa V.)
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Do we have a likely match? Paul? Lisa?

OR is it Ae. 'Bert', as Nick suspects? My Berts have a more compact inflo than Paul's plant.

K :)

P.S. Great to finally meet you out of cyber space, Paul! The Brom Camp weekend was a hoot!

Well, now that I've seen the inflorescence, I think I'm going to side with Nick on this one (despite the fact that his pic is MIA). The c-a hybrids all have very slender wiry stems, and the shape of the inflo is slightly different, more delicate.

And if I may add my 2 cent's worth. I would very much like to say it looks like my Bert (which is growing up in a tree with a bit too much shade), but when mine flowered last year, the flower was a bit more compact despite the heavy shade. So maybe your plant is indeed a c-a x Bert who looks very much like Daddy, but Mommy made the flower stretch out just that wee little bit?

Aech Bert:
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Japie

Hi again everyone,

Well, the uncertainty continues! As also noted by Kerry and Japie, I thought that the inflorescence was noticeably less condensed than examples of 'Bert' that I've seen, hence my moving away from Nick's and Lisa's diagnosis of 'Bert' and more towards the Ae. correia-araujoi x 'Bert' pics of Lisa's in that old thread. But, after Lisa's comments about a more slender inflorescence in her plants, I've gone back to her pics and I can certainly see what she means.

Japie, I'm still inclined to your suggestion that maybe a mommy Ae. c-a has stretched the inflorescence a bit, but
I think I'll have to settle with..........hmmmmmm, I just thought of another something! I'm donning the headtorch to go and take another pic. Back in a moment.

Cheers, Paul

Back again,

I just realised that I had taken the original pic from below the level of the flower spike, which would tend to make it look a bit shorter and fatter than it really was. Here is another pic taken just now from the same level as the flower spike. Any difference putting them side by side?
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Not much difference there. I guess that "Aechmea hybrid" is still looking like the way to go if I need to give this plant a name.

Thanks again for your help. Cheers, Paul

There seem to be a number of clones of Bert floating around, Paul. I get the feeling it may be used more like a grex name for any hybrid of orlandiana and fosteriana rather than being limited to a specific cultivar. In addition, it can self, so there are probably F2s bearing that name too. With all that, it's not surprising that there would be some variation in the size and shape of the inflo.

I'm not going to definitively rule out the possibility that it could have c-a in it too, but I'm still not seeing it in the inflo. Even your second pic looks chunkier than any of the crosses I've done using c-a. If it is a c-a hybrid, it's not one of mine, and it leans so heavily towards the Bert side that I would be comfortable tagging it as such.

In my ( limited ) experience ,i think you have hit the nail on the head Lisa ,there are a number of differing clones of "Bert " around and it does seem more a grex name than all else , and i have several ,and not all spikes are the same . for me the plant in question is a straight ' Bert' , the spike is far to robust for the other ,Ae c-a seems to always impart its slender spike habit ,But having said that ,only a foolish person is 100% sure ,a wise man leaves a little room for doubt, ( confucius )
Jack

Hi Lisa, Hi Jack,

All good points and a nice little learning exercise for me. Thanks a lot for all of the info. It's great to be able to draw on your experience once again.

Cheers, Paul

Lisa, tell me more about Bert selfing. I put some pollen on Bert this winter and have a few seedlings growing. I only got seeds from the flowers I crossed but I'd hate to be growing F2s.

It was a long time ago, Nick, so I don't remember all the details, I just remember growing out a bunch of F2s. I'm pretty sure I didn't hand pollinate it, as this was before I started hybridizing. I suppose it's possible it could have gotten pollinated by something else, but I didn't see any evidence of that in the offspring. They weren't very attractive, though. The parent had much nicer markings and coloration, but the flowers were pretty similar.

I don't know if all the clones self, and I don't even have a Bert anymore. If you only got seeds from the ones you pollinated, then that's a good sign. I wouldn't worry about it too much, just keep that possibility in the back of your mind. It might be kind of like Hannibal Lecter, i.e. an occasionally selfer which also accepts outside pollen when it's offered.