I took these photos on a recent visit to Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. The plant looked somewhat familiar to me, but I couldn’t put a name to it. After rummaging through the garden’s plant database, I finally identified it as billbergia nutans. That name sounded even more familiar and a quick check revealed it was a plant I grew in my (tropical) garden in Washington State. There, it was an annual or one to be overwintered indoors. Here, it grows year-round.
Billbergia nutans is native to South America. It’s commonly known as queens tears or friendship plant, the latter because it is an easy plant to split and share. It’s an epiphytic bromeliad, meaning it is shallow rooted and gets most of its moisture and nutrients from the air and from rainfall through the leaves and flowers.
For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
Graham's Island 
A gorgeous flower and image, Graham! Thanks for the colorful spot in my stormy, gray life today!
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Thanks Terri. I hope clear skies and calm weather is in your near future.
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It’s strange how you can recognise some species but then can’t remember where you know them from or what their name is.
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Happens to me all the time. I’m happy enough if I can eventually remember or work out what something is.
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What sometimes annoys me is when you work out what it is only to find scientists have reclassified it and changed the common English name and/or scientific name. I have hundreds, possibly thousands, of slides with captions on the slide mounts that are now wrong.
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Very frustrating!
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