Hi everyone.

Beth - It could be an
alcantarea, but apart from that I can't give you any more details. I base what
I said on the fact that the growth habit, size, inflorescence and the turned
down leaf tips are all features similar to an alcantarea I grow.

I would suggest you go to the
Florida Council of Bromeliad Societies (F.C.B.S.) site and look through the
listing of alcantareas in their photo index; you may recognise a name or at
least there are many other pictures to compare your plant with, especially the flowers
when they open. Failing that, if you can post some pictures of the flowers when
they open, I can ask a friend of mine who specialises in this genus.

In case you haven't used this
site before, (http://fcbs.org/pictures.htm) is the URL to use to open the
site, and then go to the index on the left of the page and select "alcantarea". On the next screen you will find a choice of either “species” or “cultivars”; start with the
species first as there are more of these listed, and go through them
systematically, comparing them with your plant.

At this stage your plant is
missing one of the main identifying features (flowers), however you can still
select a few “possibles” and when your plant eventually flowers, you can
compare again for similarity between the flowers and hopefully come up with an
accurate ID.

I’ve just had a quick look at
the species listing and Alc heloisae and Alc extensa look like possibles to use as a starting point.

There is also another listing of
cultivars and that is the Bromeliad Cultivar Register (B.C.R.) which can be
found at http://registry.bsi.org/?genus=ALCANTAREA.
Obviously because it’s a cultivar register there are no species listed, but
there are more cultivars than those shown on the F.C.B.S. site.

I hope this has been of some help.

All the best, Nev.

Thanks so much. It's good to get advice on where to go and what to look for. Will post a picture when I get flowers.

Thought I'd send out an update with the flowers. Major response thought this was Alcantarea Imperialis

Hi everyone.

Beth - Thanks for the photo; it's always great when we get feedback and also very much appreciated as it helps us all to learn more about the outcome of the plant in the topic.

All the best, Nev.