Dunedin Botanic garden geographic plant collection curator
Dylan Norfield is dwarfed by the flowering Agave plant.
Photo by Craig Baxter.
It is a tough life when you spend 25 years building up to
something and then die as soon as it happens.
In the Mexican Border of the Dunedin Botanic Garden an Agave
plant is concurrently going through both the throes of death
and the joys of reproduction.
The succulent of Mexican origin only flowers once about every
25 years and then proceeds to curl up and die, geographic
plant collection curator Dylan Norfield said.
The Agave was donated to the garden 17 years ago by an Opoho
family and is the only plant of its kind in the garden.
It was seven years old and about 60cm high when it was
donated and was planted well back from the path in the
Geographical Plant Collection to keep its spikes away from
the public.
Little did staff know the plant would grow to take over much
of the bed, growing to about 3m x 3m in size.
Then, in November last year, staff noticed a spike growing
from the middle of the leaf rosette.
The spike, which resembles a giant asparagus stem and is
about 7m tall, started flowering in August this year, and is
expected to continue for another few months - before the
whole plant collapses.
Mr Norfield said the plant would create "pups" on the stem in
the next few months which could be taken off and planted, in
order to replace the plant.
The plant can be viewed in the upper garden.
sarah.harvey@odt.co.nz
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