Tasty berries of some hardy epiphytic bromeliads

Small fruit of Aechmea gamosepala (left) & Quesenelia marmorata (right) which I sampled as food recently. The dark purple ripe fruit of the Aechmea was sweet, not outstanding in flavor but good. The Quesenelia was much milder and less sweet in flavor, but nice if you eat a lot of them, rather like custard. I have only sampled each a few times, on one occasion the flavor of one of them (don't recall which) was exceptional, quite complex and rich, I think this may have been when they were completely ripe, perhaps over-ripe. Figuring out the best time to pick them deserves investigation. I was surprised to find the skin of both fruit is too tough to eat, you have to squeeze the flesh out with your teeth holding the skin with your hand, probably not a plus though possibly could become habit forming like sucking on a lolly. 

Other bromeliad fruit I've tried are Neoregelia marmorata which is small, white and tastes bland but I suppose could possibly be added to dishes such as stir fry as a vegetable (the small purple flowers are also quite tasty but not produced in significant quantity) and Aechmea nudicaulis var cuspidata fruit which is small, orange and mildly sweet and pleasant.

I decided to try the fruit largely on the basis of the article Bromeliads: Edible and Therapeutic by Michael Spencer 1981 . Journal of the Bromeliad Society Vol XXXI (4). There is specific reference to Quesenelia marmorata and Aecmea nudicaulis being edible, I don't believe I ever found a specific reference to Aechmea gamosepala fruit being edible, only general statements about the genus having edible fruit as well as virtually no reports of toxicity in bromeliads except in unripe pineapples.

Although these fruit do not seem to be very noteworthy food I think they are a small but positive addition to the edible garden because the plants can grow without soil as air plants or epiphytes, producing in niches where most, if not all, more useful crops could not, so don't compete with them for space. I like to grow epiphytes attached to a house. They have tolerated winter night temperatures averaging around  + 5 C  with occasional frosts down to around  -3 C.

Spender also mentions eating the petals of Billbergia, I tried the petals of Billbergia bruauteana, they are soft enough to eat but have a slightly strange unpleasant flavor so I regard them as inedible, possibly toxic.