Billbergia windii in flower

My friend Kate gifted me a Billbergia windii when we first moved to Penarth 18 months ago, and it’s now decided to flower. The flower is really quite something. I found it hard to photograph, but here a few that I think show it off nicely.

It lives in the lounge room, but to capture the colours I had to use a sunny day in the greenhouse.

A catcus-like perennial in a dark teal pot. The green leaves form funnels that are about 1.5cms wide and around 60cms high, and this one has 3 flower spikes coming out of the centre of 3 funnels. The flowers are a pale to strong pink colour, with reflexed, purple-edged, green tepals that extend from the flower.
A focus on just the pink flowers and the green-purple tepals. As the tepals develop, they curl up and look very cute.
A focus on the end of the flower with the tepals, none of which have opened yet.
Focusing just of the tepals and you can see the detail of the curling with the purple-blue edging, and then the pistils & stamens extending out further again.
Another focus on the end of the pink flower and the tepals.

Apparently the green leaves (that form a funnel from which the flower extends) die off after flowering, so I’ll remove them when I repot the plant after it finishes flowering.

Thanks to Kate for the plant, and J-P for still sharing his knowledge after he has gone.

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