What Is Urn Plant?
Urn plant (Aechmea fasciata) or silver vase is a plant of the “pineapple family” Bromeliaceae. It is considered as a houseplant.
Urn plants have a very small root system and are therefore planted in small pots. The leaves are pinnate, up to more than 50 cm long, about 10 cm wide and grow in a rosette-like manner, reaching a height of about one metre at its maximum.
The trough-shaped leaves have suckers at the base. The leathery, sharp-edged, sparsely spiny leaves are dark green with silver-grey stripes.
The inflorescence growing from the centre of the leaves is striking and long-lived. The outermost pointed-edged bracts of the inflorescence are pinkish-red, with bluish-red smaller flowers growing from the centre.
The tuft of bracts persists well beyond the flowering period, the shoot dies slowly and the mother plant produces side shoots, one or more, at the same time.
The plant occurs in the wild in South America where it grows as an epiphytet. When growing in the wild, it collects water in the centre of the rosette and in the leaf axils and therefore does not need roots to remain in place.