Gusmania - Relatives To Pineapple

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

In tropical forests in Central and South America, you can find a plant with attractive green rosettes of leaves, above which are sultans of flashy flowers. This culture is called Gusmania, which is symbolized by the name in honor of the geographer A. Guzman, who lived in Spain

In nature, these flowers can be found under the canopy of trees and bushes living on fertile soils. Their epiphytic lifestyle allows them to grow on open slopes where they can climb roots or branches.

Gusmania belongs to the Bromeliad family and is very closely related to pineapples. Different varieties of gusmania differ from each other in size, shades of leaf plates and the specifics of life. In total, there are about one hundred and thirty plant varieties, many of which are loved by flower growers who grow crops in their home.

Features and characteristics of gusmania

However, the most interesting thing is that in most countries, including Russia, this plant is called by a different name. This is most likely due to the writing of the name of the plant in Latin Guzmania. Of course, if we consider the true origin of the plant's name, then in accordance with the traveler's surname it is necessary to write "gusmania". However, even many literary sources, and the flower growers themselves, call the flower "guzmania".

The attractiveness of the plant is undeniable, because floriculture lovers are more pleased with the beauty of the bright sultans in the upper part of the flower. Novice flower growers are sometimes confused, considering these sultans to be plant inflorescences. But in fact, this is just a bright bracts, collected from rosettes of leaves, which the gusmania needs in order to attract pollinating insects. The plant needs such an element due to the fact that the inflorescences themselves are very small and sometimes completely invisible.

For a large number of years of existence in nature, various varieties of gusmania could die out altogether, since they remained without pollination. But many plants used a certain trick here to set the seeds. In some varieties of gusmania, so-called cleistogamous flowers are formed. They hardly open, but pollen develops in the inner part of the bud, after which it migrates to the pistil, thereby ending the pollination period. But guzmania can bloom only once in its life. A large number of species are characterized by wilting after pollination and the withering away of the old rosette of leaves.

Gusmania plants are now becoming more and more popular, and nurseries are trying to expand the number of varieties and types of flowers. Now you can find guzmania with bright scarlet sultans or with other shades of bracts. The most relevant is the use of pink, burgundy, orange and yellow tones in the upper parts of the leaf rosettes. But especially in demand among modern flower growers are guzmania hybrids with variegated leaves, where green is combined with stripes of white and pink.

Rosettes grow in a spiral of leaves and have a very dense structure. Therefore, the plant looks very beautiful in the interior as a decorative element. But this circumstance is not only in the aesthetic function, there is also a practical necessity here. With the help of such a rosette, epiphytes, which are often located on the root system or tree trunk, can collect moisture, which immediately penetrates the roots of the guzmania through a special path. In addition, it helps the plant to create its own top dressing. But also, in addition to water, in a similar situation, organic residues come to the roots of the flower - for example, miniature insects or pieces of rotten leaves, tree bark.

Since the bottom of the guzmania has longer leaves than in the upper area of the plant, in this situation moisture is collected from a huge distance from the middle of the outlet. Thus, an interesting adaptation of the plant allows a flower with small roots, even in conditions of nutrient deficiency, to develop, grow and bloom very well. Indeed, such plants do not need to have a very strong and large root system, although guzmania has specific roots. On the side of the tree where there is a minimum of sunlight, or other not very favorable conditions are present, the flower can move to where it will be most cozy and comfortable.