Red Torch Bromeliads

Fall is full of colors in a Florida garden. Muhly grass and winter cassia are currently competing for everyone's attention in many sunny spots, but tucked away in the shade here and there you'll also find Red Torch Bromeliads, which have been blooming in various places since late summer. The crop here at MOSI usually blooms in mid-October, and is just past its peak now. You'll find these beautiful bromeliads near the BioWorks Butterfly garden, around the small pond area, and in the Historic Tree Grove underneath the Ray Charles Live Oak.

Red Torch Bromeliads (Billbergia pyramidalis) are native to South America, but have widely been used in ornamental gardens in zones 9 - 11 in the United States. Like all epiphytes, they do not depend on soil for their nutrients, and so can be planted in just about any kind of conditions. Many folks place them at the base of trees, where root-filled soil makes planting anything else too difficult. As they spread, they will slowly climb up the trunk of the tree, clinging to the bark.

What's In a Name? The genus Billbergia is named for Gustav Johannes Billberg (1772 -1844). Bilberg was a lawyer by trade, considering botany and zoology merely as hobbies, although he published four works on plants and insects and was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1817. Pyramidalis, as its name indicates, describes something that is pyramid-shaped. This can refer to the the overall plant shape (albeit inverted) as well as the shape of the flower.