Any ideas???

ok I feel silly here but can anyone tell me what this is....my first thought was that is was a Dyckia but these can get huge, I measured 4 feet across and I was not aware they could get that big....I did see a few with old flower spikes that were about 1.5 tall and they had little orange fruit on them by the time I got to them.....the fruit smelled just like orange/grapefruit mix too, with black seeds inside. The leaves to this plant are very long, rather thin and flexible, & very thorny. The babies I will show in the next picture.....

Here are the babies......they grow on the one large root (more then 1" thick) out and away from the mother plant, just like the agave angustifolia LOL
What has me all confused is the size of these plants....how they reproduce...the flower spike being only 1.5' tall, and the small orange fruit???

Hi P.A, I have no idea, but they do look like Dyckias to me too. I've not had any first hand experience with them so cannot offer anything at all, but someone will know!

Ok I narrowed it down to a type of Bromelia.....there is not a whole lot of info about them out there in cultivation....that I can find so far.

That is a Bromelia balanse (probably misspelled that) more commonly called "Heart of Fire".
You do NOT want to plant this anywhere that you do not really, REALLY want it. Especially in Sarasota.
They grow into huge thickets and are extremely vicious. They have been used as living fences in Australia and at Guantanamo Bay as an escape deterrent. The spines go both ways on the fronds so if you get caught in it, you get ripped up going in and coming out. This is one of the ONLY plants in my yard that all of the animals avoid.

I started with 2 small plants about the size of your average Neoregelia and now have a huge thicket that has engulfed some big crinums and is threatening to engulf a gardenia bush. I am in the (very slow) process of digging them out one at a time (there must be 30+ plants, many with a 4 ft spread) and relocating them to the front out by the fence where they can only spread one way.

They spread out very sneakily by underground stolons that can go for a few feet so they can pop up under fences, etc well away from the mother plant

This is a photo of the bloom on one of mine
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/Bihai/Bbalansae.jpg

Yes well I found out what they are like to dig them up LOL I went and actually dug up about 20+ of these a renter was giving away....8 of them looked to be about full grown & 4 of them already had the little orange fruits on them. I did not get a chance to see the flower on these and I know there are like 15 kinds of Bromelia's. I'm guessing I have the same kind as you have because of the red leaves that were almost gone by the time I got to them. Plus I don't think they all have the orange fruit. Yes I was rather confused by the babies on runners and it being a bromeliad. At first glance LOL I thought is was some kind of mutated Agave/ mutated Dyckia...all in one plant :) So thats why I grabed the welding gloves and dug the entire patch up LOL The people there thought I was nuts, and for a short while so did I. We are a nursery and plan to sell offsets in due time, do you mind if use your photo Gothqueen? We can put your name on the photo or what ever you request.
Thanks,
Julie/ The Plant Attraction