I think, amongst all cultivated bromeliads, Heachtia is the least known genus. There are at least 10-20 kind of them, but quite hard to ID correctly ! as most of them look alike. So, HDD, I'm not sure which species I have, except H. rocea, H.glauca, H. manier-lapostollei, H.glomerata which have distinguishable characteristic, but could say that there are about 15-20 different kind : 12 specimen plants including 8 seedlings with different No. of localities data that I've kept in my collection. I understand, Philofan, as I sometimes do collect plant : caudiciforms, succulents in their habitat by myself like Guy, so if I was a business man I would sell that high :) Yep...Bob, I thing 2nd Tropiflora's H. argentea might be another kind, may be miss-tag, as Charlot told me that he also got his H. argentea from Tropiflora years ago too!

I may be dense, but what's DRUEL? I googled it and all I got was some refrence to a drug dealer....and refrences to people named Druel. Am I out of the loop? Linda C

They are nice. This makes our fourth season with ours in the ground. Its probably 3 or 4mtimes bigger now than when planted. We even got some great blooms last year. Doug

I grew up on a dairy farm in N.E. Ohio and as a kid our entertainment was romping through the fields, woods and swamps. In fact, it was common for my cousins and I to disappear on one of our jaunts and be gone for the whole day, generally not returning to the house until it was nearly dark and most of the time our parents didn't have a clue as to where to look for us, but that is another issue entirely. One of the plants that we were careful to keep and eye out for was the skunk cabbage because it grows in icky mucky mud. Quite often you will find it in a deep woods and its mere presence indicates a swampy depression where one would quickly sink to your knees or worse. If you look at the above photos you will note the purple cup shaped part at the base of the plant. That is the Skunk Cabbage flower and it generally appears even before the leaves begin to emerge. In doing a bit of research I discovered that the Skunk Cabbage is a very unusual plant in the fact that it exhibits "Thermogenesis", which means that it is one of a very limited number of plants that actually generate heat. In fact, the Skunk cabbage can actually be 15 to 35degC warmer than the air. It is believed that the plant generates heat for two reasons: 1. In early spring the plant can actually generate enough heat to break through the remaining frost in the ground or light snow covering, thus it is one of the first plants to emerge in spring. 2. It generates heat to enhance the pungent odor of the flower, thereby attracting flies, carrion beetles and bees to enhance its pollination.