546 FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 
green, with blue margin; winter. Introduced from Brazil, 1868. 
ate 251. 
B. PORTEANA (Porte’s). A stout plant, often a yard high, with broad, 
folding, brown-green leaves, and arching spikes of large red bracts and 
green flowers. One of the most showy. Brazil, 1849. 
B. SANDERIANA (Sander’s). Leaves broad, leathery, armed with 
stout spines. Flowers green, tipped with blue; bracts rosy. Introduced 
from Brazil, 1885. 
B. ZEBRINA (zebra-striped). Leaves brownish green, zoned and 
spotted with grey, forming an urn-shaped cluster 2 to 3 feet high. 
Flower-spike stout, nodding, clothed with large boat-shaped, rose-pink 
bracts, and bearing numerous greenish flowers; March and April. 
Introduced from South America, 1826. 
About a dozen hybrids have been raised in Continental gardens, 
where, by the way, Bromeliads are much more popular than they are here. 
he reader is again referred back to Karatas for 
particulars as to the cultivation of these plants. 
Description of Billbergia nutans, one-fourth less than the natural 
te 251. dimensions. Fig. 1 is a section through a detached flower. 
Cultivation. 
TILLANDSIAS 
Natural Order BRoMELIACE&. Genus Tillandsia 
TILLANDSIA (named in honour of Elias Tillands, a Swedish botanist). A 
genus of over three hundred species of stove perennials, mostly growing 
upon trees or rocks, a few only terrestrial. They have narrow, undivided, 
spineless leaves. The flowers are borne on single or branched spikes ; they 
are white, yellow, or purple, and consist of three erect, usually large, 
sepals, and three deciduous petals. The sepals are spirally twisted, the 
petals rolled into a tube below. The fruit is a three-valved capsule, and 
the seeds are surrounded by fine hairs, which assist in their dispersal. 
They are natives of Tropical America, a few only extending into North 
America. 
TILLANDSIA CARINATA (keeled). Leaves broad, strap- 
shaped, with sheathing base, spreading and curved back. 
Flowers pale yellow, the sepals keeled; bracts green above, scarlet 
below; scape stout, scarlet; November. Introduced from South 
Brazil, 1866. 
T. LrypENI (Linden’s). Leaves slender, recurved ; forming a rosette. 
Principal Species. 
