bromeliace:

Just a few Aechmea calyculata’s around the yard, very close to flowering. 

The variegated one is Aechmea ‘Alaya’, and I have it in two different locations in the yard, both of them are flowering.

The non-variegated one, I believe is the regular form of Aechmea calyculata, I also have a smaller form, which flowered in January of this year. I believe this the regular form, because it’s inflorescence is bigger than my smaller form’s inflorescence, however, the plant itself isn’t much bigger than the smaller form. 

Either way, they’re all nice plants, with nice foliage. All forms have blue finger nails at the tips of their leaves with blue throats, and all forms spineless. They all also pup very well and are all cold hardy in my area. 

It’s interesting to me that these 2 forms are flowering, while the smaller one is not, even though there are flowering size plants in the clumps.