Plate 1 figs. a–h · 7 observations
This species has been photographed under an open licence only 7 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.
Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.
Native range 10 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Brazil North | BZN | SOUTHERN AMERICA |
| Brazil Northeast | BZE | |
| Costa Rica | COS | |
| French Guiana | FRG | |
| Guyana | GUY | |
| Jamaica | JAM | |
| Suriname | SUR | |
| Trinidad-Tobago | TRT | |
| Venezuela | VEN | |
| Venezuelan Antilles | VNA |
Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.
Where it actually grows measured, from 273 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 16.6 °C | 21.7 °C | 24.2 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 27.3 °C | 30.4 °C | 33.2 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 679 mm | 2,249 mm | 3,584 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 31 mm | 214 mm | 311 mm |
It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 273 research-grade observations of Aechmea aquilega that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.
This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.
Also published as 18 synonyms
A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.
- Aechmea aquilega f. alba Oliva-Esteve
- Aechmea aquilegioides Kuntze
- Aechmea chrysocoma Baker
- Aechmea exsudans (G.Lodd.) É.Morren
- Aechmea meyeri Baker
- Bromelia aquilega Salisb.
- Bromelia bracteata var. aquilega (Salisb.) Steud.
- Bromelia exsudans G.Lodd.
- Bromelia exudans G.Lodd.
- Bromelia paniculigera Rchb.
- Bromelia surinamensis Miq.
- Gravisia aquilega (Salisb.) Mez
- Gravisia aquilega var. chrysocoma (Baker) L.B.Sm.
- Gravisia chrysocoma (Baker) Mez
- Gravisia exsudans (G.Lodd.) Mez
- Hohenbergia chrysocoma É.Morren ex Baker
- Hohenbergia exsudans (G.Lodd.) É.Morren
- Tillandsia exsudans (G.Lodd.) Desf.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.
We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.