Hi there Devo, we have a Neo Red Tips here in Aus. so I'd say that they are separate broms.

I have a pic of one of Troppogems that is mind blowing, I'm sure she wont mind you seeing it.

BRB with a pic

I have these pics in our Aussie Bromeliads website as well.

Red Tips as a bit of a teenager

{{gwi:510070}}

Its a medium and quite compact Neo, regardless of how big the pics make it look.

and Mature

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a stunning Neo, and I was lucky enough to receive a pup of this from Troppogem herself.

I hope this helps.

Andrew, do you mean "concentrica Red Tips", AKA Foster's Pink Tip? That is now recognized as a cv. of johannis, and as such, has no cup color.

I don't know of any official concentrica 'Red', but Princess Di used to be known as concentrica x European concentrica, so that's the closest thing to a red concentrica that I know. It has a bright red cup and concentrica markings, and is a much nicer plant than Foster's Pink Tip.

There may be other Neos with similar names, though. I'm not familiar with cractpot's plant, but it doesn't look like a concentrica.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:510069}}

If I may jump on the wagon, too? You know I have a thing about red concentrica's Lisa! And especially the 'concentrica Red Tips'. And you took a plant home from Florida : HL x concentrica Red Tips. Now the pollen parent of your plant, what excactly was that? Fosters Pink Tips? Princess Di?

Japie

I'm not sure, Japie. It's a Groves cross. I figured it must be Foster's Pink Tips, but I'm not sure why he would choose that as a pollen parent.

I'm always suspicious of anything with HL as a seed parent anyway, because it self-pollinates. You can emasculate it, of course, and I'm *pretty* sure Grant knows what he's doing, but most of the supposed HL crosses I've seen could just as easily be F2s for all the influence they show of the other parent. That cross you mention does have red tips, though. It's about the nicest HL hybrid I've seen so far (apart from the variegates, of course).

Thanks for the info. I think the plant cractpot mentioned the one I had heard about. It has been used here as one of the parents in a nice hybrid, so the Aussie connection seems right.

But now I am intrigued with that HL cross (HL x concentrica Red Tips). Lisa, the plant you got looks different from the plant registered as 'Metis'. What do you think Grant would have crossed onto HL to get that...? I would have thought a concentrica, or even johannis type plant would have been dominant, & reduced the banding. Grants plant has even more banding than the standard H.L types, & those nice red tips. No other nice zonated plants with red tips come to mind. What do you think...???

I don't know what the story is on Metis. I thought it was the same as the one I got but HDD said no. Mike posted some nice pictures earlier of a couple of plants, one or the other of which may be Metis (see link). Both look better than the FCBS photo, but that's most likely growing conditions.

Now that I think about it, there were two different clones of that cross at Michael's. I got the better, more heavily zonated one. You can see the other one around the edges in the photo:

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For one thing, it's not the kind of hybrid Grant usually makes. I'm kind of curious as to why he would go outside of what he's become known for to play with a plant so strongly associated with Skotak. And I don't know why he would choose a johannis (if that's what it was) to cross it with. Concentrica I can see if he wanted to give it some cup color, but I don't think this has any. At any rate, it worked out nicely.

HL seems to be one of the strongest transmitters of zonation to its offspring, which is probably why it is getting so much use lately. I'm wondering if somehow that combination could have turned what normally would be a recessive trait into a dominant one? I don't know enough about genetics to fully understand how that might work.

Here is a link that might be useful: Brom Soc of Broward County Show/Sale