It has been a scorching summer this year in Namm Ooru Bengaluru and bidding adieu to the summer are these stunning blooms of the “Bromelia balansae” or the “Heart of Flame”, plants.
These plants are often grown as hedge plants because of their almost impenetrable razor sharp leaves, because of which they often referred to as the "Barbed-Wire-Fence-Bromeliad".
Come summer and these often ignored hedge plants begin to blossom with the leaves turning bright vermillion red and from the center rises, the inflorescence filled with lovely lavender colored flowers, truly a stunning sight to behold.
Captured these images in the 400 acre wooded campus of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. India. The IISc Campus is a Botanist and a Naturalist's Delight.
The genus is named after the Swedish medical doctor and botanist Olof Bromelius (1639-1705) – for Bromelia and after the French botanist and explorer Benedict Balansa (1825-1891) - for balansae. The plant is native to tropical South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay).
The most famous example of the Bromeliaceae family is the edible and delicious fruit - The Pineapple (Ananas comosus).
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