- Kingdom Plantae
- Division Magnoliophyta -- angiosperms, flowering plants
- Class Liliopsida -- monocotyledons
- Order Bromeliales
- Family Bromeliaceae
Bromeliads include
epiphytes, such as
Spanish moss, and ground plants, such as the
pineapple. Many bromeliads have a "cup" formed by their tightly-overlapping leaves, in which they store water. However, the family is diverse enough to include the cup-type epiphytes, grey-leaved Tillandsias (which gather water only from leaf structures called
trichomes[?]), and even a large number of desert-dwelling
succulents[?].
The largest bromeliad is Puya raimondii[?] (growing way too tall for your backyard), and the smallest is probably Tillandsia usneoides, or 'Spanish moss'.
http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/angio/www/bromelia.htm
as of 2002-06-18
| Bromeliad Society International (
http://www.bsi.org/)
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terms of the GNU Free Documentation License