Gouda & Bak 2023a (Article) Navia

Introducing Navia phelpsiae

Author(s):—E.J. Gouda & P. Bak

Publication:—Journal of the Bromeliad Society 72(2): 69-73. (2023)

Abstract:—Navia phelpsiae Smith (1957), has been grown in the Netherlands by Peter Bak for several years now and proven to be a species worth cultivating. Growing Navia seems to be not an easy task, several species have been tried in culture over the past decade, but many are lost, mainly because they do not set seed under our conditions. It seems that they do not like to be repotted, so the trick is to leave a large part of the root system untouched when repotting and not cleaning the plants too much. Hundreds of plants have been grown of this species by Peter and growing very well, and there seems to be quite some variation in bract color from rose-red to more intense reddish. Not all plants set seed, but some do.