Soon after the publication of their work on the reproductive behavior of Vriesea by Lavor et al, 2017, I had the opportunity to carry out observations on the flowering behavior of a few Sincoraea species Two clones of Sincoraea heleniceae were introduced to our collections by Eloise Beach in 2016. These plants--from Brazil--were tentatively identified as S. heleniceae based solely upon the short, closely-spaced marginal leaf spines. This was the only character they shared with the plant I had labelled as S. heleniceae; a plant Karl Green received from Harry Luther (then at Selby Gardens) in 2007. The Selby plant was much smaller, and the leaves maintained an unusual reddish color throughout most of the plants' life cycle. The two clones from Eloise were both the same size, but differed in the density of trichomes on the upper (adaxial) leaf surface and--as later became apparent--in some details of the flower structure. Eloise gave these two clones identifying codes: one was EB1B (see Fig. 5), the other EB2B (Fig. 1). I will use these same codes to identify the two clones.

Although these plants grew well under my conditions, it took over a year for them to flower. EB2B was the first to reach this stage. Its first flower opened on May 3, 2017. It should be pointed out that this was one week too late for entry into the Bromeliad Society of South Florida Show and Sale. I looked at the plant a few days before the show opened; it was coloring up, but I had no idea how quickly it would develop. EB1B was found in flower only a few days later, on May 7 and it appeared that three flowers had actually been open the on this plant a day earlier.

Once in flower, it was possible to verify the identity of the species by checking the characters against those shown in Louzada. One of the important characters is the distribution of pigments on the leaves during flowering. As seen in Fig. 1, the red color is only seen on the uppermost leaf blades and the longer primary bracts. There is a light green to white band around the inflorescence caused by the absence of the red pigment between the end of the red color and the boundary of the inflorescence. Trichomes on the upper (adaxial) leaf surface are far too widely scattered to influence the apparent color, so you are seeing the actual color of the leaf blades throughout. The primary bracts, floral bracts and sepals are also green.

Despite some disappointment over missing the show, I now had a perfect opportunity to carry out a study on some aspects of the floral biology for this species. This was a very limited study: I wanted to determine when blooming began and ended, when flowers opened and when flowers closed, the pattern of flower opening over the course of the blooming cycle and the number of flowers produced by each plant. All this needed to be done without...