Their roots serve primarily as hold-fasts to grip their canopy perches and are adapted poorly to absorb nutrients, which is instead obtained through leaf litter, animal droppings and rainfall that collects in the prominent central cup exhibited by most species in the genus.

They have mostly broad, relatively flat leaves often marked brightly with red, purple or yellow pigments which serve to protect the green photosynthetic tissues from sunburn and through selective breeding and hybridization, thousands of cultivars in many color combinations, many also striped with white, have been produced.

Neoregelias, like most bromeliads, bloom only once in their lifetime and then begin to die, but normally not before producing several pups - small clones of the parent plant - around the central flowering rosette on stolons.

Neoregelia bromeliads and their hybrids, due to their varied forms and beautiful colors, are commonly cultivated as houseplants, or in warm climates as landscape plants.

The frogs raise their tadpoles in the security of the water-filled cup in the bromeliads' rosettes, allowing them to stay in the relative safety of the treetops and not have to venture to a pool on the ground where predators are likely much more numerous.