Monday, November 19, 2007

Bromeliads

Bromeliads are exotic and beautiful tropical plants. According to Wikipedia, Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) is a family of monocot flowering plants of around 2400 species native mainly to the tropical Americas, with a few species found in the American subtropics and one in tropical west Africa. The family includes both epiphytes, such as Spanish moss Tillandsia usneoides, and terrestrial species, such as the pineapple Ananas comosus. Not surprisingly, the pineapple plant is part of the Bromeliads family.

Many bromeliads are able to store water in a "tank" formed by their tightly-overlapping leaf bases. However, the family is diverse enough to include the tank bromeliads, grey-leaved epiphytic Tillandsia species which gather water only from leaf structures called trichomes, and a large number of desert-dwelling succulents.The largest bromeliad is Puya raimondii, which reaches 3–4 m tall in vegetative growth with a flower spike 9–10 m tall, and the smallest is probably Spanish moss. Go here to learn more.

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