We love tillandsia!!

Air plants can grow without soil
Erle Nickel, Special to The Chronicle
Wednesday, September 9, 2009

The latest conversation starter at San Francisco's Plant Cafe may be not the organic salads but the tillandsias. But don't look for them on the menu, they're on the wall.

The most recognizable member of the bromeliad family, tillandsias, commonly known as air plants, are popping up in unusual places including Bardessono in Yountville, where they decorate the hotel's entrance in a vertical installation.

These Central and South American natives are working their way into mainstream gardening circles adding their striking foliage and widely varied tropical flowers to indoor and outdoor gardens. This weekend, they'll be featured along with the rest of their plant family in the San Francisco Bromeliad Society's sale.

Few plants can match tillandsia's resume. They grow and flourish without soil; they boast a dizzying array of foliage and flower combinations; they reproduce vigorously either through pups, the small offspring that bromeliads and many succulents produce, or by broadcasting seed; and they are among the easiest and forgiving of any plants on Earth. Bromeliad enthusiast and collector Bill Holliday of Oakland adds: "Mexico has by far the most species of tillandsias and though most like dry winters and moist summers, T. plumosa and T. magnusiana are two gems adaptable to our climate that make perfect little spheres of gray, fuzzy, blade-like leaves."
But despite their popular name, these plants don't live on air alone. In the wild, moisture and nutrients are gathered from the air through structures on the leaves called trichomes. Tillandsias are often found growing in trees but are not parasitic; the branches serve only as support.

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