Saturday morning found me taking pictures in the garden yet again. I am joining in the SOS crowd flocking to Jim’s blog to share six items of interest from their gardens. Today I am featuring summer flowering bromeliads from my tropical oasis in South Florida.
This is a Aechmea Rubens flower with a White Peacock butterfly sipping the nectar. It has been a good year for this butterfly. I have swarms of White Peacocks for some reason. I want to share what I just read on Google. Groups of butterflies can be called swarms, kaleidoscopes, or rabbles.
Buds on a Aechmea ‘Little Harv’ bromeliad.
Another view of ‘Little Harv’. These get much taller and open, the stem is hot pink.
This is Aechmea bracteata in full bloom. These last a long time and eventually dry to a straw color.
Aechmea blanchetiana ‘Lemon’ shooting up flower spikes. These are three or four feet tall and will open up a bit. They remind me of crustaceans.
Aechmea miniata bromeliad flowers. These are my favorites. Easy to grow and nice, low foliage that is not sharp.
That’s all from sweltering South Florida. We are just out of the heat dome in the Eastern US thankfully. It is much warmer further north.
Thanks to Jim for hosting.
The Shrub Queen 
I’ll go with ‘kaleidoscope’, a ‘rabble’ of butterflies doesn’t sound right at all. A rabble of slugs or vine weevils would be better. Hang on, I just looked it up and the collective noun for slugs is ‘ cornucopia’. How weird is that? I just love all your fabulous bromeliads. I’m green with envy.
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Cornucopia of slugs? in a horn shaped basket? (that may be an American thing) I think rabble is better. You should see the crazy Broms people grow from seed.
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Another week of amazing plants from Florida. Thank you! 🙂 The White Peacock butterfly is fascinating and beautiful, and your photo of it is great. And thank you for sharing the terms for groups of butterflies.
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Thanks, Beth
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Beautiful, I like the drama of the bracteata.
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I just read these are supposed to be grown in trees so the flowers hang down. Really dramatic. Thank you.
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A great set of plants, I imagine they are loving the tropical heat! 😎
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More than me.
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So many bromeliad. I can’t even imagine your garden. We are far north of you and living without AC. My husband is having a hard time, but my childhood is coming back to me.
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The garden is morphing into tropical madness. I grew up without AC in Atlanta. Never again. My husband lived in Pennsylvania as a child with no AC and spent years in TX. We would have a window unit by now!
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My dad finally got an AC in one room. Here on the mountain, it is usually 10 degrees colder. Luckily, our finished basement has bedrooms and is usually in the mid 60’s.
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That sounds good..my parents got AC in the 80s..
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I figured that butterflies congregate in herds. They form huge herds on blooming blue gum and red gum trees as they migrate. Rabble sounds better though.
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Rabbles in the gum trees?! Sounds like drinking is involved.
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It does, but it somehow sounds better than herds in the gum trees.
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Just wonderful, definitely a bromance!
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Thanks, Rosie.
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You have an amazing selection of Bromeliads! And my favorite, just like you, is the Aechmea miniata. What colors !
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Thank you, Fred. The red is so brilliant it is difficult to photograph.
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I should try growing some bromeliads again…I haven’t had any luck. I used to have them when we lived in Miami.
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I have a billion and will be happy to send you some pups this winter. You need really sharp drainage to grow them successfully.
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Your Aechmea are fascinating. Little Marv is especially lovely. And the white peacock is pretty too. I like the idea of a ‘kaleidoscope’ of butterflies… reminds me of those toy ones we had as children. Thanks for sharing that!
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I think kaleidoscope is a good name and remember those from childhood as well, my mother loved them.
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