Ananas comosus
Common Names: pineapple, commercial pineapple Family: Bromeliaceae (bromeliad or pineapple Family) Description The pineapple is a bromeliad, like Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) and ball moss (T. recurvata), but pineapple is a terrestrial bromeliad, growing on the ground, rather than an epiphytic bromeliad that grows on a tree. The pineapple plant grows as a rosette of evergreen, stiff, spiny edged dark green leaves about 3 ft (1 m) long. In summer it sends up a 12 in (30 cm) cone shaped cluster of little purple flowers in yellowish bracts. These give rise to the well known pineapple fruit, a delicious, fleshy, juicy, swollen stemlike structure (called a syncarp), usually red or yellowish in color. The pineapple "fruit" is actually composed of 100-200 fused berry like fruits. It is about a foot (30 cm) long and may weigh up to 14 lbs (6.3 kg). The fruit is topped with a rosette of small leaves, that forms a new, smaller pineapple plant. 'Red Spanish' is the m