Potting up... Agave lophantha quadricolor

[juster]

Lovely plant Mike and it looks good in that pot, perhaps keep a couple of offsets just in case it decides to flower

[Colin Walker]

The only bigger pot I had was MUCH bigger. But, bullet bitten and 100 litres of compost and gravel later (and some of my lifeblood - those spikes are sharp!.

Looks so much better as a solitary rosette without the pups. This is my standard practice whenever possible. Agave lophantha in all its various forms is a prolific pupper.

[Mike]

Thanks Tony, I've put in a request to join the 'Member Group'. Patrick, if meanwhile you'd like to PM me that's an alternative.
Colin, I'm wondering if this one (centre) might be an 'ordinary' lophantha? It came from seed labelled as A. garciae-mendoza which it clearly isn't. It's only produced two pups, though. Any ideas?

Cheers
Mike

[Patrick]

Patrick, if meanwhile you'd like to PM me that's an alternative.

Have done just that Mike

[agavedave]

Thanks Tony, I've put in a request to join the 'Member Group'. Patrick, if meanwhile you'd like to PM me that's an alternative.
Colin, I'm wondering if this one (centre) might be an 'ordinary' lophantha? It came from seed labelled as A. garciae-mendoza which it clearly isn't. It's only produced two pups, though. Any ideas?
20200417_101920[1].jpg
Cheers
Mike

I have one very much like that I bought as a seedling and it too looks nothing like it should. I don't think it is lophantha either as it has no desire to grow particularly large. Probably a hybrid of something in that family as they seem cross all too easily.

Best regards
Dave

[Colin Walker]

Thanks Tony, I've put in a request to join the 'Member Group'. Patrick, if meanwhile you'd like to PM me that's an alternative.
Colin, I'm wondering if this one (centre) might be an 'ordinary' lophantha? It came from seed labelled as A. garciae-mendoza which it clearly isn't. It's only produced two pups, though. Any ideas?
Cheers
Mike

Re.: Agave garciae-mendozae

Mike, you've got me thinking about Agave garciae-mendozae. Photo of my lone plant here.

For scale rosette is about 28 cm diam. and it has yet to pup.

This came as a small seedling from Geoff Bowman (agave Geoff) back in 2014. I would have expected Geoff to use reliable sources for his seed.

Thinking about this it does look rather like Agave lophantha, especially because of the prominent mid stripe, which is NOT mentioned in the description for Agave garciae-mendozae. However, this species has stonkingly large rosettes up to 1.75 m diam, so we may just be looking at very immature plants. My sole plant is relatively slow growing compared to Agave lophantha which in contrast romps away given root room and loads of water which it can take by the shed load.

I've just checked again on the first description of Agave garciae-mendozae. The single habitat shot shows a rosette in which I can detect a very feint mid stripe on some leaves. See also habitat shot (slightly different) in John Pilbeam's A Gallery of Agaves p.88. Note here the spelling of the species name is wrong.

So, I think the jury is currently out on the ID here.

[Colin Walker]

Thanks Tony, I've put in a request to join the 'Member Group'. Patrick, if meanwhile you'd like to PM me that's an alternative.
Colin, I'm wondering if this one (centre) might be an 'ordinary' lophantha? It came from seed labelled as A. garciae-mendoza which it clearly isn't. It's only produced two pups, though. Any ideas?
20200417_101920[1].jpg
Cheers
Mike

I have one very much like that I bought as a seedling and it too looks nothing like it should. I don't think it is lophantha either as it has no desire to grow particularly large. Probably a hybrid of something in that family as they seem cross all too easily.

Best regards
Dave

Dave, it's just possible that what we're growing as Agave garciae-mendozae may be a hybrid. Tina once raised a batch of Agave montana seedlings for me and there were two seedlings that clearly weren't this species.

[Mike]

I guess it's very hard to prevent hybridisation of Agaves in cultivation, given the sizes of the inflorescences, but that would also require two different species to be in flower at the same time at the same location. Is that likely, I wonder?
Mike

[Colin Walker]

I guess it's very hard to prevent hybridisation of Agaves in cultivation, given the sizes of the inflorescences, but that would also require two different species to be in flower at the same time at the same location. Is that likely, I wonder?
Mike

Mike, Agave garciae-mendozae is recently described so any seed will have come from habitat. However, there are many places where two or more species grow together (sympatrically) that hybridisation is possible. So for example the ranges for Agave montana and A. gentryi overlap and hybrids between them are known, such that there's a zone where the two species intergrade with each other, a process known as introgression. There are several other similar examples. Agave xpumila is not a species but an interspecific hybrid, but the parents of the original clone are disputed but one is almost certainly Agave nickelsiae (formerly Agave ferdinandi-regis) with maybe Agave lechuguilla being the other parent.

[Skribbane]

Absolutely stunning plant, Mike!