Last month I perused my computer for images of sky objects, predominantly moon shots. During my file manager tour, I ran across a series of pix of a smallish century plant that inspired me to make it this month's topic. It already showed its stalk pointing upward from its base of leaves, aka rosette. The stalk's branches and bloom clusters progressively grew in quantity and size.
2000 or 2012?
The pix date stamps indicated March 2 through May 8 2020. I went down the wrong garden path when I considered the pix to be from 2000. My title would have been a spiffy-sounding " Y2K Century Plant, 25YO Forgotten Fotos". I kept getting some naggy feeling about time frame, so to speak. I happened to also spot a folder that I apparently did some low-level edits, such as rotating, then resaving to png. Those images had date stamps of July 4 through September 8 2012.
I pored over folders and camera-issued sequence IDs. The agave pix numbered from 1875 through 2077 (year saved, 2000). I recalled that I have some pics with 1861, 1862, and 1866 numbers for sequence. The saved date was June 28, 2012. I ran across some other pix in the number sequence neighborhood, but they had 2000 for save year.
Google Maps Nudging Time Frame
I poked around Google maps to find the address where I'd seen the plant. I saw the most recent property image from April 2024, but also saw images from March 2022, July 2019, February 2015, April 2011, June 2009, and Dec 2007. Lucky me! The agave showed up in 2007, 2009, and 2011. However, it was nonexistent in 2015, 2019, and 2022.
I decided that July 2012 was reasonably more likely a time frame for my set of pix than 2000. A small brain nudge was a Google image screen capture July 4 2012—good enough for me to consider that date as an origin.
How Special Was this Agave?
What was so special? It was smallish, shorter than some other century plants that have rosettes taller than people and seemingly wider than a roundish car. This agave was a peewee that I could approach closely, its height maybe only 8' high. The diameter of the base (rosette) was about the diameter of a manhole cover. An oddity I've not seen before or since is the stalk's initial angle about 33° from the rosette, then its continued growth aiming skyward.
I searched the web for smallish agaves. Two sources had images and descriptions that lead me to conclude it was a New Mexico agave.
"New Mexico Century Plant (Agave)" includes rudimentary info resembled my specimen. The following physical info piqued my curiosity:
Mature Height 15-18" tall
Mature Spread 24-30" wide
No Americana agave here! "Agave americana (Century Plant)" includes physical info as follows:
Height 3-6'
Spread 6-10'
"Agave parryi subsp. neomexicana (New Mexico Agave)" provides a good description of the plant.
Agave parryi subsp. neomexicana is an ornamental succulent that forms rosettes of ascending, lance-shaped, gray-green leaves with sharp teeth along the margins and a dark brown terminal spine. The rosettes grow up to 1.5 feet (45 cm) tall and 2 feet (60 cm) in diameter, usually accompanied by offsets around the base. Leaves are up to 1.5 feet (45 cm) long and 2.4 inches (6 cm) wide. This subspecies has slightly thinner, shorter leaves than Agave parryi subsp. parryi. Also, it has more open rosettes, larger flowers, and a greener, less glaucous coloration.
The mature rosettes, 8 to 20 years, send up an up to 10 feet (3 m) tall spike adorned with tufts of flowers on many lateral branches, usually in summer. The flowers are yellow to yellowish-green and red to orange in bud. Fruits are oblong, up to 1.4 inches (3.5 cm) long capsules with black seeds. The rosettes die after setting fruits.
Some time, I plan to do one or more pic tour of an americana century plant. I just rediscovered a folder of such pics from 2009! More recently, I collected daily pics of a century plant in 2017 from March 7 to May 5.