I have had this Bromiliad for about 4 years now. The original mother cup was
in flower when I bought it. After it bloomed it produced 2 pups. I cut off the
2 pups when they had grown some and repotted one and gave the mother
plant and other pup to a friend of mine. Once the mother cup flowers, she
will not flower again, but will produce 1 to 2 pups. It usually takes 2-3 years
for the pup to flower. You can induce the plant to flower by putting an
apple at the base of the plant, covering it with a plastic bag for 7-10 days.
The ethylene gas that it produces will trigger flowering. If you do this, you
have to be careful in that ethylene gas can be harmful to other plants
and I do believe orchids can be one of them. Here is a picture of the plant
now. The second is a picture of the 2 pups that it has produced at the
base of the plant.
The name of it is Aechmea fasciata and her is a pic of what the flower looked
like this spring.
The one thing I also learned from mine is that they say you can pour a small
amount of water into the cup, I lost one of my pups to rot doing that. I
occasionally mist the cupule now and that seems to work better.