Forgotten Fotos of Americana Century Plant (2009)

My previous topic was a New Mexico century plant, a peewee compared to the Americana this time around. I'd pic'ed the peewee in 2012 and forgot about the images. Peek into "Forgotten Fotos of New Mexico Century Plant (2012)" (video, article) besides diving into the giant century plant (pix from spring 2009. I'd recently looked into a folder named "Ancient" and found these images.

I took the Americana pix in 2009 starting from the end of March to end of June, mostly weekly. The first eye-catch was the stalk starting to grow upward. The plant had reached about 10' high already. By early May, it already reached 20' and displayed branches and flower clusters.

The following resources provide some basic orientation of the Americana century plant:

• "Agave 'death bloom' in Oakland neighborhood stands at 27 feet" shows an agave not quite at maximum growth, but already at 27 feet. The branching out status, if similar to my pix, indicates maybe 75% growth completion.
• "All About Century Plants – Everything You Need to Know!" provides broad info and pix for agaves.

Once the century plant has completed its blooming process, it gradually begins to start dying off. ... it puts all its energy into producing a spectacular flowering stalk just once in its lifetime, before gracefully bowing out.

• "What to Do When Your Agave Blooms" provides overall info about the BIG EVENT. The site shows a partial close up view of stalk with flower clusters. The flowery display, if similar to my pix of most-robust clusters, indicates the show to be within 80% complete.

I still have agave pix I'd taken over several years that I plan to blog about. This one century plant project brought back memories of having seen numerous agaves bloom. Alas, the 2023 Arborgeddon seemed to have killed off many of them. FWIW, I have not spotted rising century plant stalks or branchings like I used to several consecutive years.

Forgotten Fotos of New Mexico Century Plant (2012)

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'

Note: The images of the rosettes do not show stalks. Thinking that the height dimensions refer to distance from the ground to the tips of the tallest leaf/leaves.

"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.