Hopes fade for giant agave bloom at Baltimore Conservatory
Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Jed Kirschbaum
It is a tragedy of botanical proportions.
A giant agave basks in the warmth of Baltimore’s Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens, its spike of flower buds shooting through the roof and toward the sky.
The cactus, a resident of the conservatory for decades, is known as the Century Plant for its long life.
But a recent frost claimed its yellow petals before they could open and now, the agave will die without doing what it does just once during its time here on earth – bloom.
“I called the director of the Santé Fe Botanical Garden,” said Kate Blom, the conservatory greenhouse manager. “I asked him if there was any hope that it would bloom. He said, ‘I wouldn’t think so.’”
Blom was stunned when she returned from vacation in September to see a flower spike shooting out of the center of the cactus, which is at least 8-feet tall and 10-feet wide. Normally, a flower spike will appear on a succulent in June, she said.
“It was growing a foot a day,” she said of the 30-foot spike, which is about six inches in diameter. “You could literally stand here and watch it. It was our own beanstalk.”
The staff removed a panel of glass from the roof of the Desert Room to allow the spike to keep climbing. And they waited, cameras at the ready, for the enormous plume of pale yellow flowers that were certain to pop open at any moment.
It didn’t happen.
And a deep cold Sunday night appears to have dashed any hope that it will.
“Suddenly, it has turned into a Charlie Brown Christmas tree,” said a saddened Blom, looking up at the shriveled buds.
The Agave americana, a variety called “Marginata” for the yellow edges on its green leaves, will decline and die over the next few weeks, Blom predicted. The once-in-a-lifetime plume of flowers takes all the plant’s energy.
However, a secondary and smaller spike of flowers with a few buds on it remains inside the glass roof of the conservatory. Staff will cut back the large, wilting flower spike and replace the missing pane of glass in hopes that those buds in the smaller spike will warm and open and produce seed for an offspring.
That’s because the agave has not produced any “pups,” baby versions of itself that spring up under its sprawling limbs and carry on after the parent plant dies.
“No babies,” said Blom.
There is no record of the arrival of this agave at the conservatory in Druid Hill Park.
“Somebody probably donated it when it got too big for their house,” Blom speculated. That happened, she said, 30, 40 or maybe 50 years ago. No one knows how old agaves are because they generally live longer than the people around them.
When it dies, it will leave a giant hole – in the conservatory and in the hearts of staff members who have been waiting for months for its final bloom.
For her part, Blom is sanguine.
“The Pollyanna in me says, ‘Oh my. A whole new landscaping opportunity
Comments
Dear Mrs. Reimer,
An agave is not a cactus, it's an agave. That's why it's called an agave and not a cactus. Both agaves and cacti are "succulent" plants, but otherwise they are fundamentally very different from each other.
How does a journalist of 16 years who says she's planted multiple gardens refer to an agave as a cactus twice in an article? As a former newspaper journalist (freelancer for The North County Times, San Diego Co.), I know how the game works, and there's no excuse for not getting your facts straight. Perhaps it's just easier to say "cactus", but that just perpetuates ignorance, which is the antithesis of journalism, the way I see it.
The botany & horticulture of succulent plants may be yet another small niche of interest, about which many of your readers know very little (hopefully not), but there appear to be significant potential benefits to growing these plants in light of a presumably warming planet. So please get the basic facts straight and don't perpetuate the rampant ignorance about what is and is not a "cactus".
For the record, there are close to 200 species of agave in the genus Agave, which is one of several genera (plural of genus) in the family Agavaceae. By contrast, there are nearly 1800 species in over 120 different genera in the family Cactaceae. The vast majority of agaves and cacti (it's okay to say "cactuses") are drought-adapted, but somehow most people just lump them all into one category: cactus.
Thanks for understanding,
Fritz Light
Curator of Succulents
Cal Poly Plant Conservatory
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, Ca.
"Thanks for understanding?" Should be "Thanks for absorbing my temper tantrum." You are correct. An agave is a succulent, not a cactus. The Sun regrets the error. -- Susan
Posted by: Fritz Light | December 5, 2010 10:19 PM
Dear Mrs. Reimer,
I appreciate you taking responsibility for your error. My words were not meant to hurt but to ask for accountability and to straighten the record. I hope that painting me in a negative light with your "temper tantrum" comment does not detract your readers from a few important facts about a very cool aspect of the natural world and gardening (i.e. succulent plants). But surely most uphill battles for enlightenment involve some aggression on the part of those resistant to change.
Fritz Light
Posted by: Fritz Light | December 17, 2010 6:32 AM
I don't know and don't care who Fritz Light is, but I really don't care for the tone he brings to what has been a pleasant gardening chat.
You leave town for a coupla days and....
Thanks for the support Eve. I am very grateful!. I was in San Diego seeing my son, just back from the war, and taking lots of pictures! They will be up soon! -- Susan
Posted by: Eve | December 17, 2010 11:03 AM