Hi everyone.

I have two plants of Bill. nutans which flower regularly every year; one is growing in a shady environment and just has plain leaves and the other in a semi-shaded area and has faint spotting on the leaves.

Both of these plants originally came from the same parent plant. So to answer your question, I would think it's possibly a matter of available light, with lower light producing plain leaves and higher light producing the spots.

I also once bought another plant at the local market said to be a variegated Bill. nutans. This had shorter wider leaves than my usual Bill. nutans and I was initially attracted to it by the variegation and the faint pink blush it displayed and thought it was quite an attractive plant. I was told to grow it in an area where it got good light to maintain the variegation and the pink blush which I did, and it grew well and kept the variegation and the pink blush and multiplied just like my plain Bill. nutans does.

Over a couple of years a neighbour's tree grew larger and restricted the amount of light this plant received and the leaves gradually grew longer and it first lost the pink blush and then the variegation faded so I decided to move it.

It was such a large clump by then that I decided to divide it and give some to various friends. I trimmed the overly long leaves back to what should have been their original height with the idea of hastening the pup production and this seemed to work with new pups soon springing out everywhere.

The problem is, that even though it's now growing in a well lit area it's now developing some faint spotting similar to my original Bill. nutans plant growing in the semi shaded area. All traces of the variegation and pink blush are gone.

The pups are now only about three quarters grown and I'm hopeful (but not confident) that the variegation will return. The other thought that has crossed my mind is that like some variegated plants, it has lost the variegation because it's reverted back to its original form, which is disappointing as I haven't seen another one to replace it with.

One of the friends to whom I gave a division, has told me that her plant too is developing spots instead of variegation. So I guess I'll just have to wait with "fingers crossed" until the pups are mature hopefully with the return of the variegation.

All the best, Nev.

Thank you so much for the information. We had a very unusually warm summer in Seattle and this may have been part of the reason for the spots reappearing. It is now in a much lighter location in the garden - still in pot - and that may have also helped. All of the pups seem to also have spots. I think that the plant did have some variegation 8 or so years ago - then turned all green until this last year. Very interesting. I have not seen other Nutans in Seattle in nurseries or gardens. We have to do some testing to see how hardy it is in our Marine climate. We have been bringing it into the basement since we moved to Seattle and it has happily flourished.

Thanks again for the help.

Splinter..... spots are good! lol

Do you have a source to get these? I'm looking to replace one that died.

Micheal's Bromeliads has them. I suggest buying a couple as opposed to a single plant if it fits in your budget. Growing them as a clump makes them very happy plants Here is his direct ph# 727-415-7276