Imso :)

I think it's a fake plant. There appears to be no medium in the pots.

Mimosa flowers are similar but I don't think that is the plant in your photo. Nothing else on the pictured plant looks like a mimosa. I agree, it looks like it could be fake, maybe a fake trying to mimic a mimosa bloom.

I can't tell if it's real or not either, but maybe Xanthorrhoea. The ones toward the back look plain green. The last pic here is the closest match I could find to those pink/red leaves, and no pics matching the trunks. If it's fake, it's a weird thing to make, IMVHO. Spray paint came to mind, as seen on some succulent plants lately, but if so, it's so evenly done, no runs, no drips, no errors. (No, I'm not a fan, or advocating painted plants, but they are out there. Don't "shoot me" as messenger if the idea upsets you.)

I agree with fof. Looks like a pink duster.

It may be a Calliandra or "Red Pom-Pom Tree"
I would guess a 50/50 chance.
It also looks pretty real to me. :)

It's actually a Fakus roseus. A "silk", as they say in the floral industry. AKA - a decoration.

It looks like someone wrapped broomhandles with coconut fiber and glued polyester dusters to them. We used to do similar things for staging and special events. The idea was always to get people guessing...

Hi,
That tree looks very real me to me. I certainly am no expert but I think it is alive. Do you have email addresses of someone that lives near to the place were you saw it?
If you were on a group tour perhaps some else got to examine it closer and might know.
If that's a fake then there are some very talented artists there. ;)

There are two "trunks" in the leftmost orange pot, and the "trunk" on the left looks like it might be square.

If those things are real, they're essentially rootless, and don't need more than a couple of cups of soil.

The pots are only about 3/4 full, and the only filling we see is some sort of white stuff. I can't identify it, but it bears no resemblance to soil or mulch ... or anything else you'd normally find in a plant pot.

I am stunned that these look real to anyone! The trunks look like 2X2s wrapped in coco or other bark/fiber. Who knows what the top is....but is sprayed with florist paint, which is very realistic looking (except for the colors) . You've seen floral spray on white flowers at all of the big box stores....turning mums, poinsettias, and others a "realistic " blue, purple, green, etc.

Those pouffy tops can be tinted with any designer color of the moment.

Can't find a pic of anything identical, real or fake, good points both ways here. If someone wants to buy one, they'll need to use different search words than I did. I've seen a lot of fake plants, but they all emulated real plants, whether the 'right' colors or not. I don't shop for faux plants at all though, so no idea what's new out there (that I didn't see with the particular searches I did.)

These wild things are sitting among (and in the way of) some extremely ordinary plants. Kind of looks like someone just unpacked them and sat them there for a minute, maybe the decoration scheme they're going to be part of is not yet apparent.

If they are real, the trunks could be wrapped for protection against mechanical injury, and they look staked to me. Why would a fake tree need to be staked (if those are stakes?)

Don't know what the white stuff in the pots might be either, maybe styrofoam to keep stuff from shifting, but that's the best point about fake-ness, IMVHO - "where's the 'dirt?'" Live plants usually need a little. Wouldn't a fake have faux soil/moss at the base covering the white stuff? Maybe not unpacked yet, or didn't come with them?

Littlejoe, did you touch these? You're the only one who's seen them in person. Was your impression that they are real or faux? Did you notice the white stuff in the pots? If so, what is it? Can you think of any other clues? Nothing personal, but it's suspicious (toward being fake) that you joined the same day you posted this oddity.

Somebody's college soc (sociology) experiment: trick people on the Internet and document their reactions....

If the price tag visible is in Euros, that's equivalent to just over $20 US for a not very big but very ordinary mum. Do they cost more in Italy? It's been 30 years since I was in Italy. Is that how a hand-written sign indicating pride in Euros would look?

Here's an interesting site, purple. You can look for all sorts of photos -- I've set it for Italy and markets.

The prices seem to be written in different formats (just as we do with dollars).

What's interesting about this particular photo is not the price-format used, but that the price tags are the same yellow rounded-rectangle as in the OP's photo.
http://www.picturescolourlibrary.co.uk/hybrid/data.svt?viewpage=picture_details_np.jsp&pclref=2897201

FAKE!!! How anyone can say these are real is a mystery to me.

These are not intended to look real. They are an invention, created solely to tickle the imagination. They might not even be for sale at all, but kept as a store decoration.

How would one obtain that kind of gradient coloring with paint brush or spray can? Looks factory-produced... so where is the website that sells them? Can anybody find anything similar for sale or in any kind of pic at all? Without that, or more input from Littlejoe, speculation could go on endlessly.

The tags in the pic MTO linked all use an E somewhere, and makes me more suspicious the pic isn't from Italy at all, but I may be way off-course. They didn't even have euros when I was there, and using an E to indicate euros may not be necessary/customary in the context of this store and/or its' location. If it really is 15 euros for a Mum there, I'd say you were in the expensive part of town!

purple, in other photos from EU countries, I saw prices which didn't use the Euro symbol. I linked to that particular photo to show that the same model of yellow price tag is used in Italy.

Some of the tags in the other photos had a comma where we use the decimal point (the comma is European usage); I'm not sure if there's a comma in the photo above. At least one photo showed the last two numbers underlined (as Americans underline the cents). I think there were others with the entire price underlined.

Many years ago, my parents lived in Belgium. Prices of everything were much higher than in the U.S. Food, gas, everything in stores. (I think the same was true the last time I was in Britain.) So I'm not surprised by the price of the mum. And maybe it's a high-end store where all the prices are high just to make you think they're ultra exclusive mums....

As for the gradient coloring, ombre (shaded; variegated) yarn has been sold for many decades. I know how low-tech crafters make it, though I have no idea what the big yarn-producers do.

So the gradient-dyed fiber is the easy part. Then, maybe, chunks of dyed fiber are clamped together and glued to a piece of something-or-other. Then the piece is attached to the top of the "trunk". (I'm sure there are other ways to do it.)

Most people seem in agreement that everything is real in the pic, with the exception of the pom plants. I think its highly unlikely that a vendor would have fake plants mixed in with real ones for sale or otherwise. Nobody does that ! For one thing it will confuse customers much like you see what is happening in this thread. I think the law of averages will bare out the plant to be real.

Silly people,

That's how Mexican Feather Grass participates in Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

On a similar note, can someone ID these eggs I spotted at the Farmer's Market?

;-D

Its a Truffula tree!! From the lorax!!!

these are clearly tribbles. Perhaps a breeding pair

...and that’s trouble.

tj

I work in the event industry as a specialty florist, and I can tell you definitively that is a composite fantasy plant. The “trunks” are pipes covered in coco fiber and the tops appear to be bunches of hand-dyed grass. Maybe Mexican feather grass?

It’s not alive and was probably custom made for a party and now being sold as a second-hand prop.

Those are Truffula trees