AN AECHMEA IN FULL FLOWER

Above you see a hippopotamus-size, epiphytic bromeliad about three feet off the ground. It's an Aechmea, probably AECHMEA BRACTEATA. By "bromeliad" I mean a member of the Bromelia or Pineapple Family, the Bromeliaceae, a family of mostly tree-borne, tropical American plants.

We've often run into bromeliads, especially in humid areas. Spanish Moss back in Mississippi is a bromeliad. In Querétaro bromeliads grew on power lines and at Yerba Buena they constituted an important part of the humid cloudforest flora. Here you'd almost expect it to be too arid for bromeliads, but several species show up. So far Aechmea bracteata has been the largest and most spectacular I've seen of the local species. Most or gray, egg-size to softball-size, rosette-forming, scurfy little beings well camouflaged within the gray bark and thorns of the branches they populate.

It can be hard to identify bromeliads, but Aechmea bracteata has some easily seen field marks. First, in the picture above, notice that the inflorescence, or cluster of flowers, is compound -- small flowers arise from the inflorescence's branches instead of directly from the long, bending-down stem. Also, the lower branches are subtended by long, red bracts, or modified leaves. The sheer size is important, too, this being a big species.

I'm guessing that back during henequen plantation days Aechmea bracteata was almost extirpated from this area. That may be why it's so uncommon now. In this scrub kept perpetually hacked up by firewood gatherers, it's like seeing a Dandelion in a crack in parking-lot pavement -- Nature always trying to come back, always trying to heal Her wounds, to bring diversity into deserts.