A legendary plant. When you look up ‘rare’ in the dictionary, you should see a picture of tayoensis. This plant has only been collected a few times in nature, in Ecuador and Peru. Most, if not all plants in cultivation came from these two collections. The most well know plant was Wally Berg’s which won the ‘Best in Show’ award at the Bromeliad World Conference in Orlando in 1996. At that same show, another plant was donated by the Marie Selby Botanical Garden and was auctioned off for $1,200.00 to a buyer from the Philippines. The plant is a large grower, to over 4 feet in diameter. The leaves are petiolate with a narrow spiny petiole and a broad, spineless leaf. The plants are green, tinted orange-red. The inflorescence is a spiny head of many recurving, orange-red bracts and yellow flowers and can last for a year or more. Grow warm and moist (not wet) in shade to bright shade. *VIPP plant is an Offset
