AGAVE OR ALOE

Evening Star, Issue 22026, 11 May 1935, Page 3

AGAVE OR ALOE

At present there is flowering in a garden in Morningtou, at the home of Mr A. Pauli, 2' Carson, street, a lino specimen of the agave or aloe. The flower stalk started to rise in November, and in about six A-eeks’ time had almost attained its present height of 26 i;eet. The movement of the large flower stalk as it bent alternately from side to side, day by day, to_ allow the flowers to expand, was very interesting to watch. This plant belongs to the noble genus of Amaryllidaceoe, principally found in Mexico and other parts of South America. The species, of which several are known, are mostly of large size with massive spiny toothed fleshy leaves, forming a large spreading tuft, from the centre of which ri'ses the tall flower scape supporting a large compound inflorescence - . Some of the species are long lived plants making comparatively slow progress in growth until the appearance of the flower stem, which, on the other hand, shoots up very rapidly. The best known species, A. americana, commonly called the American aloe, affords a very good illustration of .the family. The plants are long in arriving at a mature or flowering age; indeed, so slow is their progress, under the artificial conditions in which they are. placed in our gardens, as to havq led to a popular though erroneous notion, that they flower only onco in a century. In reality they flower but once, the Nniature condition - being attained in a longer or shorter period, ten to fifty or seventy years, or more, according to the accelerating or retarding influences under which they are placed. Having, \however, acquired, full growth the plant produces its giant flower stem from the centre of the leaves, .after which it perishes. New plants are formed around the base of the old one in tho form of suckers. After tho first appearance of the stem it grows very rapidly until a height of from fifteen to twenty -or even forty feet is reached. Towards the tip, a multitude of symmetrically disposed, horizontal branches is produced, at the end of which branches arc borne the numerous erect yellowish-green flowers by which a sweetish liquid is secreted. Tho flowering plant remains for some weeks an object of interest, the flowers being durable and produced in succession.—Contributed.