Bromeliads

These fascinating tropical American natives come in a wonderful variety of sizes, shapes and foliage colours. They seem very strange and exotic, but one of our most common fruits, the pineapple, is actually a bromeliad. Many bromeliads are epiphytes (ie they live on other plants but do not parasitise those plants), living up in the forks of tree branches and surviving mainly on the moisture and nutrients they obtain from the air. However there are bromeliads for every situation - some make very good indoor plants, while others can be quite spectacular grown in the garden.