Puya berteroniana

Puya berteroniana - The Torquoise Puya

I was perusing some Facebook postings and happened upon a photo of Puya berteroniana in bloom. I thought wow, wouldn't it be great to hype this plant up again. They were fairly popular for a short time in the early part of the 2000s but soon lost their appeal mainly because 80% of the time they are a thorny mound of grey-green leaves related to the Dyckias.

Puya's are in the Bromeliad family just like the Dyckias and Pineapple but unlike the Dyckias, they have an incredibly large flower stalk for the size of the plant - similar to the Agaves (Puyas are completely unrelated to Agaves which are in the Asparagacea family).

The Turquoise Puya blooms each spring with a huge flower stalk 6 feet tall and up to 1 foot in diameter which produces the most amazing emerald-turquoise flowers with bright orange anthers which contrast in the most amazing way with the petal. The Turquoise color is very rare in the plant world and truly makes this plant awe inspiring.
Puyas are terrestrial Bromeliads from the mountains of Chile. They can take quite a bit of cold and I've seen them blooming while surrounded by snow. It is said to survive temperatures down to 18 degrees F if kept fairly dry (young plants should be protected from frost for the first couple of years). The plant itself is a rosette of silvery-grey-green leaves and grows up to 3 feet tall and wide. It produces many off-shoots to form a clumping colony. Be careful, just like Dyckias, the leaves have many short, sharp backward pointing spines. The flower stalk is soft with silky-smooth blossoms. Birds love to sit on the outward-pointing tips and drink the nectar out of the blooms.
The Puya prefers full sun but because they are a mountain dweller, they may need afternoon shade in some of the hotter climates. It can handle frequent watering if it is planted in fast draining soil. You must be patient with it because it does not flower until it reaches 6-8 years of age. Boy will your patience be paid off in spades when it does bloom. You can have Puya Parties to show off your specimen to all of your friends.


The Turquoise form is very rare, and if you are able to find Puya berteroniana, it is usually the bluer variety of this species, or sometimes a different species altogether called Puya alpestris.  Alpestris is smaller and has darker blue, less-brilliant flowers.
I have found a local source for these Puya berteroniana and the owner says they are the turquoise flower berteroniana but without having seen the blooms, I cannot guarantee it is the Turquoise variety. I'm planting them in my mother's front yard so we will soon find out (well, within a couple of years).

Sources:

http://www.tropengarten.de/Pflanzen/puya.html
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/04/21/giant-bromeliads-in-bloom-at-botanical-garden/
http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/whatsnew/index.shtml
http://www.strangewonderfulthings.com/101.htm