Succulent

I had another busy day today - mostly doing admin, and cleaning up my computer to try to get it running a little better. I know I'm going to have to make a decision about its replacement pretty soon, but I'd rather it wasn't this week.

But it was another glorious Indian summer day, and I managed to get up to Hidcote for an hour at lunch time, to walk through the ever-inspiring garden and take some photos. I came across this rather extraordinary one in the Plant House; I'm afraid I can't tell you what it is, because in homage to Hidcote's heyday as a private garden the National Trust have a policy of not labelling the plants, but it's large (the flower head is about the size of half a large grapefruit), and presumably tender as they keep it under glass. If you recognise it, please do let me know what it's called!

Many thanks to BikerBear for the Flower Friday challenge.

EDIT: Ingeborg has just told me that this is a bromeliad - Fascicularia bicolor. There is an article about how to grow it here. Thank you Inge!