| from the October 24, 2010 Newsletter issued from
Hacienda Chichen Resort beside Chichén Itzá Ruins, central Yucatán, MÉXICO WILD AGAVE ABOUT TO FLOWER Above you see a wild agave on the right sending up a giant-asparagus-like flower stalk on which flower buds haven't yet developed. The inset at the left shows the same plant from a distance, with an old, dead flower stalk to its left. You can see that the flower stalk rises well above the scrubby forest around it. The stalk stands maybe 15 feet tall (nearly 5m). The picture was taken along the quiet little road about 10 km south of Pisté. So, which agave is this? Figuring out Mexico's agave species can be hard. One reason is that prehistoric man carried agave food and fiber, and live agave plants, all over the place. They may have carried exotic species and cultivars into our area from far away, and the descendents of those plants might be hanging on as forest-living relicts to this day. The matter is discussed a bit down the online Flora of North America page for Agave I'm not sure I could distinguish what's in the picture from Sisal or Henequen Agave, Agave sisalana, which is much planted farther west from here, around Mérida. Henequen fiber used to be a very important crop there, where it's a bit more arid than here, making it better for henequen production. However, I know the agave in the picture isn't a Sisal Agave because of what's shown below:
Those are old, split-open fruit capsules of the dead agave at the left of the inset in the previous picture. The capsules are well formed and look as if they've dropped a good crop of seeds. According to the Flora of North America page for the cultivated Sisal Agave, "The plant is not known from the wild... capsules and seeds of this species are unknown." So, what's in the picture isn't the Sisal Agave. I'm supposing that the best name for the illustrated agave is AGAVE ANGUSTIFOLIA, because that species is known to live here, and our plants match pictures of that species on the Internet. However -- especially here at Chichén Itzá where once major Maya trade routes connected -- it's just no telling what curious agaves may be hanging on in local woods, relict descendents from who-knows-where? from the April 17, 2011Newsletter issued from Hacienda
Chichen Resort beside Chichén Itzá Ruins, central Yucatán, MÉXICO
What's interesting about that fruiting head is that the lower panicle branches bear, instead of seed-bearing capsules, dense clusters of sterile, miniature versions of the agave itself, which can fall off, root, and grow into a clone of the mother plant. A close-up of one of the clusters is shown below:
A close-up of some empty capsules mixed with several small, vegetative plantlets is below:
To help with identification, I also photographed part of a younger, living plant seeming to have budded off the dead one, shown below:
In the picture you can see how the thick blades with their weakly spiny margins bulge at their bases where they connect with the main body, and are covered with a silvery bloom -- a heavy glaucescence. The blades end in a very dark, stiff, sharp spine. The sharp but spindly marginal spines sometimes curve backward, sometimes forward. |
