A friend has this plant living in a pot on her balcony. Its called a pineapple plant, for obvious reasons, and is inidgenous to South Africa. While hiking in the Maloti Mountains, I was quite surprised to see one in the wild as I had assumed it was a sub-tropical plant. Does anyone have any more information about it?
Patrick
The family is Eucomis, and this one might be E. autumnalis, though my botanist wife might correct me – there are 11 of them. She wrote about the medical properties of the plant for her PhD. It is a very popular traditional medicine. Decoctions of the bulb are administered for many ailments from lower backache to aiding in healing fractures and to facilitate childbirth.
https://www.plantzafrica.com/plantefg/eucomisautum.htm
Hey Steve
Cool plant and cool info.
You should get that botanist wife of yours to write a post or two 🙂
I think she should write too. The information is so much better when it comes from the real researcher, not her dilettante husband…