These are in my Mom’s garden. This bromeliad currently has clusters of these unusual multi-colored flowers hanging from stalks. I don’t know the proper or nickname for this variety, but it sure is pretty. Click image to enlarge.
According to Wikipedia:
Bromeliads are one of the more recent plant groups to have emerged, presumed to have evolved at the close of the Cretaceous, over 65 million years ago. Fossilized bromeliads have been dated back to roughly 30 million years ago. The greatest number of primitive species reside in the Andean highlands of South America suggesting a beginning there. The west African species Pitcairnia feliciana is the only bromeliad not endemic to the Americas, and is thought to have reached Africa via long-distance dispersal approximately 12 million years ago.
I’ve never seen anything like it! I’m going to have to go digging around in a couple different botanical gardens and see if I can’t find something similar. It’s fascinating!
Very unusual. My Mom can’t even tell me the name of it. The blue spiral on the end is strange.