#tillandsia

Behold my Blushing Bride (Tillandsia ionantha) produced three tubular purple flowers, each lasting around three days. As the airplant is monocarpic, meaning they flower 🪻 once and then slowly wither and die. This process is not immediate; the mother plant may live for months or years after blooming, during which time it will produce 1–8 "pups" (offsets) at its base. The parent plant often turns brown or dries up, directing all its remaining energy into these new, blooming-ready pups.

Wow! What gorgeous babies! On that light post (?) alone, I can see at least 9 different species. Quite the diversity for a man-made substrate! And those last 3 pictures are not actually lichens at all, but are a Tillandsia. Often known as airplants, Tillandsias are in the Bromeliad family of flowering plants, and often have an epiphytic lifestyle similar to lichens, to the point that they have convergent evolution (developed similar traits to survive in the the same environment). In fact this guy is Tillandsia unseoides (aka Spanish moss (also not a moss lol)), and its scientific name basically means "resembles an Usnea lichen."