3744 x 5616 px | 31,7 x 47,5 cm | 12,5 x 18,7 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
13 aprile 2016
Ubicazione:
Lake Butler, Windermere, Orange County, Florida, United States.
Altre informazioni:
Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is a flowering plant that grows upon larger trees, commonly the southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) or bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) in the lowlands and savannas of southeastern United States from Texas and Florida north to southern Arkansas and Virginia. It is also native to much of Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Central America, South America and the West Indies as well as being naturalized in Queensland (Australia) and in French Polynesia. The plant's specific name usneoides means "resembling Usnea", and it indeed closely resembles its namesake Usnea, also known as beard lichen, but in fact Spanish moss is neither a moss nor a lichen. Instead, it is a flowering plant (angiosperm) in the family Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) that grows hanging from tree branches in full sun or partial shade. Formerly this plant has been placed in the genera Anoplophytum, Caraguata, and Renealmia. The northern limit of its natural range is Northampton County, Virginia, with unsubstantiated colonial-era reports in southern Maryland where no populations are now known to be extant. The primary range is in the southeastern United States (including Puerto Rico), to Argentina, growing wherever the climate is warm enough and has a relatively high average humidity. It has been introduced to similar locations around the world, including Hawaii and Australia. The plant consists of a slender stem bearing alternate thin, curved or curly, heavily scaled leaves 2–6 cm (0.79–2.36 in) long and 1 mm (0.039 in) broad, that grow vegetatively in chain-like fashion (pendant) to form hanging structures up to 6 m (240 in) in length. The plant has no aerial roots and its flowers are tiny and inconspicuous. It propagates both by seed and vegetatively by fragments that blow on the wind and stick to tree limbs, or are carried by birds as nesting material.
