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A Collection of Droopheads
28 August 2024
We were on our way back to our hospital room for an echocardiogram when we noticed two of these exotic flowers in the lobby where we'd just snapped a few views of the city.
Nineteen years ago our real estate agent had made a present of just such a flower to us. It didn't, however, last long. Still, we were familiar with the species and stopped to photograph it.
Its name escaped us until we used an online plant identification site that could work with our images. Here's what it came up with:
Guzmania lingulata, the droophead tufted airplant or scarlet star, is a species of flowering plant in the family Bromeliaceae, subfamily Tillandsioideae. This evergreen epiphytic perennial is native to rainforest habitats in Central America, northern and central South America and southern Mexico. The Latin word lingulata means "tongue-shaped." The foliage grows in a star-shaped basal rosette culminating in an orange and red bracted inflorescence. It is among the most commonly cultivated bromeliad types, with cultivars producing flowers in shades of maroon, red orange, yellow or pink.
We confess to feeling something of a droophead ourselves after the concussion so we thought we'd take a family portrait.
But lobbies being ungroomed as a general rule, we decided to take a close-up of each them.
We had a maroon one and a red orange one so we leaned over, lined up our shots and shuffled back to the room.
Double vision is not something you get used to. You peer through one eye to see something clearly, resorting to an eye patch for extended viewing, or suffer the double image to be able to guess distance.
Fortunately when it comes to snapping a photo, you only use one eye anyway. So we were at no disadvantage for this task.