Rare 15-Foot Agave Plant Blooms in Dallas

NBC DFW ^ | 6/11

[nickcarraway]

A 15-foot-tall Agave plant is blooming and drawing crowds to the Dallas Arboretum.

The Arboretum says the Agave victoriae-reginae is 20 years old and this will be the only time it blooms in its lifetime.

Once it finishes blooming, the plant will die, but not before sowing seeds for the next generation.

The plant just started opening up and will bloom in the Garden's Rory Meyers Children's Adventure Garden for two to four weeks.

Agave victoriae-reginae plant is endangered in its native Sierra Madre mountain range of Chihuahua, Mexico.

[nickcarraway]

[Cowboy Bob]

If the plants are endangered in Mexico, can’t we offer them asylum in the US?

[To Hell With Poverty]

But can it make tequila?

[smokingfrog]

My neighbor that lives behind me has one that is just starting to bloom. It’s been interesting watching the stalks shoot up so quickly.

[Pontiac]

The Arboretum says the Agave victoriae-reginae is 20 years old and this will be the only time it blooms in its lifetime.

That seems to me to be an unusual plant

It lives 20 years but only reproduces once.

I/m not surprised that it is endangered. It does not seem like a very successful survival strategy.

It has the lifespan of a perennial but the reproduction cycle of an annual.

[Secret Agent Man]

Sweeeeeeet.

[Salamander]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BodXwAYeTfM

[BradyLS]

The Agaves here in Austin can be huge. One recently blossomed on Koenig between I-35 and Lamar. I’ve seen dead stalks used as a kind of “Tex-Mex Christmas Tree.” Surprised to learn they are “endangered” in their native habitat. Agaves of whatever stripe they are here in Austin seem to be everywhere.

[OftheOhio]

Thanks for that. I have a Century plant and a Blue Agave plant on my porch here in southern Ohio. The Century plant has produced several babies for my friends. I was watching an older movie with Warren Oates in Mexico and saw some that must have been seven feet tall and six feet across.

[nickcarraway]

Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia?

[OftheOhio]

Yes, that was it, haha.

[OftheOhio]

Wicked since of humor Salamander, lol.

[Pelham]

15 foot? I’ve seen far larger ones bloom in SoCal, more like twice that height. I didn’t think they were especially rare. Maybe this is a different variety.

[OftheOhio]

I have several cactus plants from two ex girl friends. The Hungarian princess and the prison bitc*. What’s that say about me?

[FredZarguna]

They don't just reproduce once.

They only reproduce sexually once.

[Pontiac]

Stolons?

[FredZarguna]

Agave macroacantha can sexually reproduce by seeds and propagate vegetatively by aerial bulbils and ground-level basal shoots and rhizomes.

http://www.amjbot.org/content/89/4/632.full

[GeronL]

Only at Sunrise

[The_Victor]

This Agave is only endangered in Chihuahua. It's cultivated as an ornamental plant. The species victoriae-reginae is hardly endangered.

[BigCinBigD]

This is what passes for news around here.