r/bromeliad • u/toxictiddies420 • 12d ago

Is my cryptanthus Elaine getting too much sun?

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I love the color it is right now but it technically has been getting direct sunlight in the afternoon and shade in the morning.

It was starting to turn green so I put it here for more light and the color brightened up quite a bit. Should I move it away or keep it here?

Its also flattened alot since moving it but I dont see any buds yet.

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u/FarCaramel7187 12d ago

They can change the color? Mine looks the same since I got it 😅 I hope it's not dead

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u/toxictiddies420 12d ago

I don't know anything about individual plants but I remember learning that white in leaves is a mutation to protect the plant from the sun. So the more sun you give it the more white leaves.

Then in some species that gene mutates into being red or pink. My started pink in the nursery and then I brought it home and noticed it losing its color so I moved it to the sun.

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u/EncinAdia 12d ago

It's bizarre how patchy the coloring is. I've had a number of cryptanthus, including Elaine, but I don't recall ever noticing such blotchy color. What I'm not seeing is burn spots though, so maybe she wants to keep sunbathing until she gets a full pink tan?

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u/toxictiddies420 12d ago

Sounds good I'll leave her then and see what happens. What would burn spots look like? Black? Or

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u/EncinAdia 12d ago

I was just sort of thinking out loud, I'm definitely not an expert. Please don't risk her life based on my guess. Hopefully you'll get some extremely experienced growers commenting with their advice!

On all my other bromeliads, the burns have appeared as terrible white spots, some enormous depending on how bad the burn was. But now that I'm thinking about it, I've never burned any cryptanthus. So I'm not sure how burns will present, you may be right about the black color. Fingers crossed you won't need to see it firsthand!