Billbergias are popular in cultivation for their colorful inflorescences, which usually bear red bracts, and flowers of dark violet, sometimes ornamented with green. This species has the added attraction of slender, flute-like rosettes of tightly rolled leaves banded with silvery trichomes. Like other bromeliads in the subfamily Bromelioideae, the rosettes hold water at their base to help sustain the plants during dry periods. The species has proven to be perfectly tolerant of normal succulent culture, both in greenhouse and shade house, in southern California. According to Dennis Cathcart, who collected the parent of this offering: “This plant came from the southern part of the Department of Santa Cruz, Bolivia. It was in a long valley that had some forest but a lot of swampy plains in between long ranges of mountains.” We offer HBG 94967 from self-fertile seed of our original plants. $10.
Published in the Cactus and Succulent Journal, Vol. 93 (2), Summer 2021