Century Plant Triplets--9th Week Peewee's 2x Leaning Angle

Uh oh. Peewee's leaning angle looks like it's doubled from one week to the next. The pixstrip shows the agave triplets pics for those April 22and April 29. (Click for larger older/newer side-by-side image.) Except for Peewee's bigger leaning angle, the plants look nearly unchanged, seemingly finished with growth spurts and obvious bulking up.

Last week in article #8, I mentioned I'd have "more info about and by the knowledgeable someone … about multiple-stalk century plants". My curiosity about multiple-stalk century plants vs. the set of triplets I'd been writing about stemmed (grin) from the caption for Will and Mary Ross' picture (about 3/4 down the webpage) that indicated a single plant with three stalks— "he was so proud when it bloomed -- and three bloom stalks is rare".

From having read that when conditions were good, agaves grew their stalks and bloom clusters amazingly fast as their last gasp for reproduction. Seemed to me that all the energy could go into only one stalk. Anyway, Dave Moellendorf, at the Austin Cactus and Succulents Society plant sale on Saturday, August 31, 2013, explains how a single century plant can have multiple stalks. (Yes, I'd like you to visit my very first YouTube video production—1 minute and 15 seconds—for more information about Dave.)



My thoughts of the pix for that day:

Peewee is leaning quite lot more. Thinking it's only a matter of time before the property owners cut it, if not all three plants, for fear of hazard or damage to cars from falling over. One other century plant in that clump bloomed just about a year ago, but was cut down.

Today, I also took a pic from the bank across the street. Quite a different view, with Peewee not looking like a leaner. THOSE pix were hard to time for shooting because of numerous cars passing right in front of the plants or stopped, compared to POV from the gas station square. (From the square in front of the gas station, the plants look like they're inline and evenly spaced -> * * *. )

The three asterisks represent the plants' apparent alignment and spacing. The following across-the-street pic shows that Peewee is to the right side of the other two plants and all three plants lean somewhat. In the approach-from-right-side pic, which I did not mention in my blockquote, Peewee looks upright, and the other two plants lean to the left.

 

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16