During the gray days of winter my senses are starved for color as the world turns mostly monochromatic. Where can I find bright colors? For a few blissful moments I immersed myself in a tropical world this past Thursday when I visited the “glasshouse,” the small greenhouse at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia.
There were some orchids and succulents, but my eyes were immediately attracted to the amazing hot pink and purple colors of an unusual-looking plant. I had no idea what kind of plant it was, but was absolutely mesmerized by this bold colors and managed to capture a few close-up shots of it with my macro lens.
When I returned home I started my research and eventually figured out that it was some sort of bromeliad. What in the world is a “bromeliad?” Bromeliads are a group of mostly tropical plants that belong to the family Bromeliaceae. I read and re-read descriptions of the characteristics and got tangled up in the scientific jargon of plant anatomy. As I understand it, many bromeliads are able to store water in a structure formed by their tightly overlapping leaf bases—the pineapple is the only bromeliad that immediately comes to mind.
With the help of my dear friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer, I determined that this colorful plant is probably a Blue Tango Bromeliad (Aechmea ‘Blue Tango’) or possible a Dwarf Blue Tango Bromeliad (Aechmea ‘Del Mar’). Both of these are hybrid cultivars of plants that are native to tropical areas and require high humidity levels to thrive—the glasshouse was humid, but not as steamy as some that I have previously visited.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
WOW! such beautiful colors!
I did not know that there was a difference between both. Thanks for pointing out 😉
I definitely am not an expert when if comes to flowers, so be cautious about trusting fully anything I say about them. This is especially true with tropical plants, many of which are cultivars (man-made hybrids). The number of such cultivars seems to be limited by the creativity of the gardener.
Beautiful. Thanks for the info.
What an amazing looking plant! Great shots Mike.
Thanks, Rob. I love bright, vibrant colors and this plant was astonishing in that regard. It was also nice to dust off my macro lens. Sometimes when I am in a bit of a rut in my photography, it helps to switch lens and choose some different subjects.
Ya I hear you on switching up the lens! I shot mainly 50 for so many years but I have every lens you can think of and still to this day I have to push myself to use something other than 50 haha. Sometimes I’ll just buy a random camera to get me out the door lol. Like the other day I saw dirt cheap Olympus Pen, so I thought ah what the heck, I’ll go have some fun with it. 😅
I love it. For somewhat similar reasons I recently bought a micro 4/3 camera, going against the tide of people who say that I should move up from a crop sensor to full-frame. 🙂
Oh that’s awesome! Ya I really like m43 just because the lenses are so small! Perfect for when you want to bring a few lenses but don’t want to lug a big heavy camera bag around.
[…] addition to the stunning pink and purple bromeliad that I featured in an earlier posting, here are some shots of tropical plants that I observed in the “glasshouse” at Green […]