Billbergia pyramidalis [bill ber ge' a peer a mi day' lis] is a bromeliad from Brazil. Every summer it blooms without fail and passers-by knock on my door to find out about that strange orangey-pink flower in my front yard. It is not really a flower, but rather an inflorescence with many flowers. So I walk the strangers to the bed and pull a few as a gift with a quick explanation on how to grow them. After all, that's how Wally Berg got me hooked. (Actually, when I left Wally's, I probably had 50 different bromeliads.)

There are 45 genera of bromeliads and who knows how many thousands of species and hybrids. Most bromeliads are grown for their odd or colorful leaves. But this Billbergia is an old time favorite, requiring little kindness from the gardener, repaying the space it's been given with a spectacular show of late summer flowers. It has been cultivated for about 180 years, a testament to its reliability.

Bromeliads handle life differently than other plants. Most are epiphytic, their roots are little more than supports or hold-fasts. Their leaves do most of the work. In areas where rainfall is high, but seasonal, the leaves form a tank to collect and hold moisture. These tanks also catch the leaves discarded by the trees towering over them. As the detritus decays, the bromeliad leaves absorb the nutrients. In desert areas, the leaves are covered with scales to trap dust and dew. Bromeliads are adapted to making do with few resources and they do it very well.

Bromeliads have the same chemistry as cacti. Bromeliads fix carbon dioxide at night, storing it as malic acid in the vacuoles of the cells. When the sun rises, the carbon dioxide is released and converted to sugars in the process known as the Calvin cycle. This temporal separation of the phases of photosynthesis is called Crassulacean acid metabolism. CAM prevents the unnecessary loss of water from the plant. The stomata (pores) open only after sundown when humidity is high. It's an adaptation to surviving in stressful situations and it makes growing these plants so easy.