IT'S FLOWER FRIDAY

Actual flowers are hard to find in the wild around here in winter, however, if you travel to the Mitchell Park Conservatory in Milwaukee you can find whatever you want growing there in a horticultural extravaganza.
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This is a Silver Vase Plant, native to the Amazon area of Brazil.  It's one of the bromeliads...and what are they?   The Bromeliaceae are a family of monocot flowering plants of about 80 genera and 3700 known species, native mainly to the tropical Americas.  They are commonly known as "air plants" as they have a peculiar root structure and way of collecting water and seem to grow "in the air" on the surface of other supportive plants, mainly trees..  
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Since they are native primarily to the Americas (South America in particular) they are usually found in rain forests where water is abundant. They are much like vases in that rain water accumulates around the base of the leaves and it is retained much like water in a vase.  Frogs often lay their eggs in that water and the tadpoles feed on insects that also lay eggs in that water.  They don't root in soil but rather on the bark of their support trees from which they absorb nutrients that they need.
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Thus endeth the biology lesson for the day.  BEST IN LARGE.