Agave stalk
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
90 points (96.9% liked)
pics
28015 readers
1480 users here now
Rules:
1.. Please mark original photos with [OC] in the title if you're the photographer
2..Pictures containing a politician from any country or planet are prohibited, this is a community voted on rule.
3.. Image must be a photograph, no AI or digital art.
4.. No NSFW/Cosplay/Spam/Trolling images.
5.. Be civil. No racism or bigotry.
Photo of the Week Rule(s):
1.. On Fridays, the most upvoted original, marked [OC], photo posted between Friday and Thursday will be the next week's banner and featured photo.
2.. The weekly photos will be saved for an end of the year run off.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://mastodon.world/about
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Thanks. Interesting looking things. Are the bushy structures flowers?
It is common in that lineage of plants. Fwiw that lineage is named for the asparagus, Asparagaceae, and most of those in that family have similar inflorescences.
Agave is split between between inflorescent traits, arborescent and spicate.
Arborescent is tree like with branching inflorescences like shown in your photo.
Spicate are simply spikes with little to no branching. Foxtail agave, Agave attenuata, is a good example shown below:
Sorry for the TMI dump.
Don't apologize for sharing knowledge.
How dare you apologise, this shit is what I'm here for
Yes. They grow that stalk and flower and then die. The plant in the foreground will do the same one day.
Sure they die?
At least the agave on my windowsill grew one last year but is still totally alive and kicking right now...
Some species with flower repeatedly, some are growing for 30 years to build up enough energy to flower once and then they die.
I think that they may mean that the flowering stalk dies off, not the whole plant. That's how aloe do.
Agaves are broadly monocarpic, meaning that they only flower once and die. Some have species do not though, and some individuals do not. Agaves are closely related to and can hybridize with manfredas, which are not monocarpic.
The world of plants is a big beautiful mess.
Not a tree. Looks like the flower from century plant or a relative
l had a small version of this with tiny white blossoms on my windowsill last year, where I cultivate some agaves.
I was very proud and happy. :-)
Cool. You know you can make tequila from them, eh?
Not Tequila, but perhaps Mezcal (wrong type of agave).
Production volume of my 0.2 sqm agave window would be pretty limited, though... ;-)
It ain't one of them antennas dressed up like a tree is it? 🤔
I'm in Bolivia rn, just saw the same plants, about 50 of them all together in the city of La Paz.