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[email protected] mob. Australia - 0448188899 some thoughts on the Aesthetics of Bromeliads Lloyd Godman http://www2.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/ BioBookPS.html 30/5/2015 Introduction Responding to colour, and form, humans are créatures visuelles. It is no surprise then that the wildly diverse variations of leaf colour, shape and structural form in plants from the family Bromeliaceae (Bromeliads) for many admirers prove irre- sistibly intriguing and captivating. A little research reveals that this amazing family of plants are indeed credited with offering the widest range of variation of colour and shape within any plant family. This is not only witnessed this in the leaf, but also in the colours and shapes of the appendages associated with flowering. Beyond the seductive visuals, an understanding of the fascinating biology Brome- liads have evolved, reveals complex systems far advanced from the first plants that emerged on land during the Ordovician period, around 450 million years ago. In fact, even the earliest examples within the family are very recent arrivals to the 1 kingdom plantea appearing but 70-50 million years ago with many of the 3,000 species evolving just 15 million years ago; about the same time as primates began to populate the planet.