Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Droophead tufted airplant

Guzmania lingulata

Also called Scarlet Star

In Singapore: Scarlet Star (Cultivated in Singapore)

Droophead tufted airplant
Photo: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0

Guzmania lingulata is an epiphytic bromeliad from tropical rainforests that forms a star-shaped rosette of leaves and a bright red or orange bract flower. Keep water in the central cup of the rosette and give it bright, indirect light.

Family
Bromeliaceae (Pineapple family)
Grows as
Epiphyte, Perennial
Light
Bright indirect
Water
Keep the central cup filled with clean water and flush it every few weeks; let the potting mix dry slightly between waterings.
Soil
Loose, fast-draining epiphyte mix such as bark, sphagnum or orchid mix.
Temperature
18–29 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Easy
Safety
Not known to be toxic
Native range
SE. Mexico to Trop. America
Climate
wet tropical

About

Guzmania lingulata, the droophead tufted airplant or scarlet star, is a species of flowering plant in the family Bromeliaceae, subfamily Tillandsioideae. This evergreen epiphytic perennial is native to rainforest habitats in Central America, northern and central South America and southern Mexico. The Latin word lingulata means "tongue-shaped". The foliage grows in a star-shaped basal rosette culminating in an orange and red bracted inflorescence. It is among the most commonly cultivated bromeliad types, with cultivars producing flowers in shades of maroon, red, orange, yellow or pink.

Other Guzmania plants

Guzmania dissitiflora · Guzmania musaica · Guzmania sanguinea · Tufted airplant

[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Guzmania lingulata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…