Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey I have another question.. how would I mount bromeliads onto my oak bark background, do you drill holes or something?.. I guess I never really understood the concept.

I've never mounted them on oak, but on cork bark, or other wood, I push the stolon, if present, into a crevice and do one of several things, depending upon the substrate. You may have to drill a hole for the stolon and bottom part of the plant with oak, because it is so dense. You can then support it more or less upright with bamboo skewers from various aspects of the vivarium, which you can remove later. You can also hot glue an outer upper leaf or two directly onto the bark, or use silicone. This will probably be enough to support it long enough for it to send out it's own support roots. Just use the middle parts of the leaves for any glue or silicone, as you don't want to damage the growth center at the base. I've done various things with fishing line, cotton thread, using nearby protuberences to secure this around the plant. You can also use staples on a couple of leaves, to be removed later. Always use an older outside leaf, of course. They will die off eventually, anyway. I also usually wrap just a bit of sphagnum moss around the base of the plant before securing it or stuffing it into a drill hole. This seems to help it develop the support roots faster.

I do some pretty audacious things to my bromes without killing them off.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

Dendrobates: auratus blue, auratus Ancon Hill, tinctorius azureus, leucomelas. Phyllobates: vittatus, terribilis, lugubris. Epipedobates: anthonyi tricolor pasaje. Ranitomeya fantastica, imitator, reticulata. Adelphobates castaneoticus, galactonotus. Oophagia pumilio Bastimentos. (updated systematic nomenclature)

So the roots of the plants just grow into the wood?

I'm not certain how deeply they penetrate the wood--if they actually "grow into" it or not, but they do form a very sturdy attachment. I recently tried to remove a bromeliad from a piece of Malaysian drift wood that had been on this for about 6 months or less and couldn't budge it without injuring the base of the plant. There's an article I read recently that was a study on bromeliad attachments. I will need to find this again, but off hand I recall them mentioning something about special cells or structures of some sort. I'll see if I can find this again for you.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

Dendrobates: auratus blue, auratus Ancon Hill, tinctorius azureus, leucomelas. Phyllobates: vittatus, terribilis, lugubris. Epipedobates: anthonyi tricolor pasaje. Ranitomeya fantastica, imitator, reticulata. Adelphobates castaneoticus, galactonotus. Oophagia pumilio Bastimentos. (updated systematic nomenclature)

I was unable to find any specific information about how they hang on so well, but they don't penetrate living wood at all. The attachment roots apparently just intertwine with the rough bark or surface fibers. The article I was thinking of was about possible symbiosis with a mycorrhizal fungus in the rain forest canopy, not about attachments, although since this fungus entangles with both the roots and tree bark, it might help stabilize the bromeliad attachment in the wild, as well. I don't think there is any such association in our tanks. When you drill to insert a stolon, this also is able to put out some rootlets, enhancing the attachment.

I was reminded however, of the name of the specialized leaf structures that enable them to absorb extra nutrients from the detritus, which are called "trichomes." They are interesting little scales that direct the moisture down into other cells in a pore-like structure with other cells that take up the nutrients at the base. A lot of green leaved plants can take up some moisture and some nutrients from the stomata, but most of these are located on the under surface of the leaves and not particularly specialized to do so almost exclusively.

I also learned that the bromeliads such as the Neoregelias and others that hold water in their leaf axils are called "tank bromeliads."

Another interesting thing I just read, is that many bromeliads are semi-carnivorous, since the scales reflect UV light in such a way as to confuse flying insects so they can't tell up from down and will fly into the axils of water and drown, further enriching the "soup du jour," or maybe a better expression would be the "pease porridge, nine days old."
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

Dendrobates: auratus blue, auratus Ancon Hill, tinctorius azureus, leucomelas. Phyllobates: vittatus, terribilis, lugubris. Epipedobates: anthonyi tricolor pasaje. Ranitomeya fantastica, imitator, reticulata. Adelphobates castaneoticus, galactonotus. Oophagia pumilio Bastimentos. (updated systematic nomenclature)