What are bromeliads: Difference between revisions

[[File:Ananasstaude.JPG|thumb|250px]]Nobody should presume he does not know any „Bromeliads“. For at least one species - in fact being not an ornamental but an economic plant - is on the tip of everybody’s tongue: the pineapple. She was the first representative of her family to find her way to Europe, rather soon after the discovery of America. The Bromeliads (lat.: ''Bromeliaceae'') obtained their name by the French botanist Charles Plumier who published them 1703 <ref name="Grant1998" /> for the first time, naming them after his friend, the Swedish physician and botanist Olaf Bromel (1639-1705). In german language generally the name “pineapple plants” is in use.

[[File:WorldBromeliadDistribution.PNG|thumb|250px|<center>Distribution map</center>]]Bromeliads are growing exclusively in the New World, which means North and South America.  Solely the species ''Pitcairnia Feliciana'' also exists in the western Africa. The distribution area of Bromeliads ranges from the South of the USA over Central America far down to Argentina and Chile. They thrive in nearly every living environment, including all deserts of the Western Hemisphere, even inclusive of the desert most arid in the world, the Atacama. Wether moist and hot lowland rainforests, dry cactus and thorn forests, or moist and could rain- and cloud forest of the mountains, even on the table mounts of Venezuela (Tepuis) and in the Páramos of the Andes, more than 4000m high, are to be found Bromeliads.

About half of the known Bromeliad species live epiphytic, meaning they grow on other plants, but without feeding on them. '''They are no parasites''', what they are often erroneously called and - alas - are treated likewise by locals. However Bromeliads can also be found living on rocks (litophytic) or on the ground (terrestrial). As their habitats dry out severely sometimes, some of them started building a funnel or a cistern with the use of the leaf bases, to catch and keep water. The biggest species can this way store up several liters of water, which assists them to compensate rather long dry periods. At the same time these minuscule lakes represent a self-contained biotope and provide living space for several other creatures, often to the benefit of both. The funnels serve insect species as breeding place for their nymphs, tropical tree frogs live and spawn in them, and even several water plants grow there. Even crabs have been found in Bromeliad cisterns. In nutrient-poor regions a few Bromeliads actually have developed the ability to live as carnivores.  

   File:Tillandsia bryoides (TS) 1-00680.jpg|<center><small>''Tillandsia bryoides''</small></center>

[[File:Puya raimondii hábito.jpg|thumb|250px|<center>''Puya raimondii''</center>]]Like all other monocotyledonous plants Bromeliads always have trifoliate flowers. That indicates that the number of all organs of the plant is divisible by three. That is: Three sepals, three petals, six stamens  and the ovary, consisting of three carpels. Often the signaling to attract potential pollinators is increased by very decorative bracts. Bromeliads predominantly are bisexual, that means they have male organs as well as female organs in one flower. Only a small number of species produce unisexual flowers. They are called ''dioecious'', meaning the whole plant is either male or female (f. e. the genera ''Androlepis'', ''Hechtia'' and some species of ''Catopsis'' and ''Aechmea''). In Bromeliads scent occurs regrettably seldom. The inflorescences are plain or compound racemes or panicles shaped very differently. Whereas the genus ''Neoregelia'' builds his flowers sunken deeply in the cistern, sometimes even hard to spot, the inflorescence of ''Puya raimondii'' with her thousands of individual flowers may be higher than 8 (!) meters. This species has, by the way, made it’s way into the “Guinness book of records” as the plant with the tallest inflorescence in the world.

<ref name="Givnish2011"> Thomas J. Givnish, M. H. J. Barfuss, B. Van Ee, R. Riina, Katharina Schulte, Ralf Horres, P. A. Gonsiska, R. S. Jabaily, D. M. Crayn, J. A. C. Smith, K. Winter, Gregory K. Brown, T. M. Evans, Bruce K. Holst, Harry E. Luther, Walter Till, Georg Zizka, P. E. Berry & Kenneth J. Sytsma: ''Adaptive radiation and diversification in Bromeliaceae: insights from a 7-locus plastid phylogeny'', In: ''American Journal of Botany'', Volume 98, Issue 5, 2011, S. 872-895: [http://www.botany.wisc.edu/sytsma/pdf/Givnish2011.pdf PDF.] </ref>