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Brazilian Vaseplant
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Brazilian Vaseplant
ntroduced Herb Photo: Tabish
Common name: Brazilian vaseplant, vase plant
Botanical name: Aechmea distichantha      Family: Bromeliaceae (Pineapple family)

Brazilian vaseplant is a funnel-shaped bromeliad with an erect rosette of arching strap-shaped leaves an inch wide and up to 3 ft long. The leaves are dull green with pointed tips and small brown spines along the margins. The inflorescence is a longish cluster of spreading spikes, each with several blue, white or purple flowers about an inch long and subtended by showy pink bracts. The stem of the inflorescence is white-wooly and holds the flower cluster several inches above the center of the rosette. Bromeliads flower only once, and then they die, but the inflorescence may last for several weeks. The plant produces a white-wooly cylindrical berry-like fleshy fruit that persists for a few more weeks. Like most bromeliads, Brazilian vaseplant produces offsets that replace the parent plant vegetatively.

Identification credit: Shaista Ahmad Photographed in cultivation in Manipur.

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