Air Plant: rot from trapped moisture — what does it look like?

Base going dark brown or black. Inner leaves pull away with a gentle tug. Sometimes a smell. Always shake out and dry upside down after soaking. Once the base is black the plant has already separated.

Air Plant: desiccation — what does it look like?

Leaves curling tightly inward, tips browning and crisping, color going gray and papery. Often recoverable — soak for several hours and dry thoroughly. Repeat weekly.

Air Plant: mounted in a sealed terrarium — what does it look like?

Decline over weeks in a closed glass container. They need moving air. A sealed vessel is not a habitat for a Tillandsia.

Field Guide/Air Plant

What went wrong

Air Plant

Tillandsia

Needs no soil. Widely taken to mean it needs nothing.

Air plants die in two opposite ways and both come from the same misunderstanding. Sold as requiring no soil, they are widely assumed to require no water, and desiccate over a few months into a dry gray husk. The other half are soaked conscientiously and then left sitting in a decorative glass globe where they cannot dry, and rot from the center within days.

The rot is much faster and much more final than the drought. An air plant that is not fully dry within four hours of a soak is on its way out.

Usually one of these

3 Likely Causes

Ranked by how often it is actually this.

01
Rot from trapped moisture
Fast and usually fatal
What you saw
Base going dark brown or black. Inner leaves pull away with a gentle tug. Sometimes a smell.
What it means
Always shake out and dry upside down after soaking. Once the base is black the plant has already separated.
02
Desiccation
The slow version
What you saw
Leaves curling tightly inward, tips browning and crisping, color going gray and papery.
What it means
Often recoverable — soak for several hours and dry thoroughly. Repeat weekly.
03
Mounted in a sealed terrarium
Common design mistake
What you saw
Decline over weeks in a closed glass container.
What it means
They need moving air. A sealed vessel is not a habitat for a Tillandsia.

The question you actually have

Dead or dormant?

Pull gently at the outer leaves. On a living plant they resist. If the leaves slide out of the base with no resistance, the plant has rotted through the core and is dead. A dried-out plant that still holds together firmly is usually recoverable with a long soak. Also check for pups at the base — these are separate living plants.

If it did not make it