Monday, September 3, 2012

A White Agave

Agave angustifolia 


Agave angustifolia is a prolific producer of offshoots, or pups, as this mother plant demonstrates. Usually, the pups are similar in appearance to the mother plant with some minor variations, so when this pup came up last fall, I was quite surprised, and just assumed it was defective and would die quickly. However, it continued to grow but at a slower rate than expected. Mutants are not that uncommon, but seeing a mostly white pup is rare. It's sort of a white 'Black Sheep'. A standard Agave angustifolia 'marginata' has a narrow white stripe on each side of the leaves as you can see in the mother plant. The width of the stripe can vary from plant to plant. In the pup shown above, the leaves are mostly white with just a strip of green in the center.

In a few weeks I'll be separating this pup and will transplant into a large pot. It will be interesting to see the pups it will eventually produce.  

3 comments:

Spiky Obsession said...

That is a lovely little plant. With the thin green stripe you may be lucky and it may survive on its own. But I have never had any luck separating them form the parent. Look forward to seeing how it does.

Julie said...

This is so cool! I love these variants when they happen! Always such a fun surprise! Hope all is well with you!
xoxo- Julie

Aiyana said...

Spiky,
I probably have good luck 95% of the time with the pups. However, when the pup is different in some odd way, they seem to have a harder time. I too look forward to seeing how this one does.