Agave toumeyana subsp. bella
Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2022 11:18 am
This is one of my more unusual agave plantings. 
It's not had a repot but it has had a wash and brush up. Fortunately the dead leaves on this plant are relatively easily removed.
For scale the cup is roughly 13 cm diam although this was damned tricky to measure since the terminal spines are quite spiky.
Unusually for me this pot doesn't have a drainage hole.
I bought this with the saucer attached to the cup, and at the time I didn't have the balls to get the drill out and attack a brand new pot. 
However, when I repot this plant I will try to drill a hole.
This plant is one of the filiferous agaves I wrote up for CW back in 2020 with fibres peeling away from the leaf edges. I've several clones of this, so the one shown here is amongst the smallest. All are moderately slow growing, so my largest specimen, another from David Kirkbright, must be a really good age since it's now in a 35 cm diam. pan and will need another repot in the not too distant future. This then is a fair sized clump with dozens of heads and I'm wondering how big this has to be to flower. In contrast the cup and saucer clump here has only 4 heads so is still a youngster.
An interesting feature of this plant is that it's reported to form "fairy rings" with age as the centre of the clump dies off and the offsets grow away from the middle.
BTW, I've never grown A. toumeyana subsp toumeyana, so if anyone has a spare offset I'd love to trade.
A significant difference between the two subspecies is that subsp bella is recorded as having flat-topped rosettes with smaller leaves. I'm not yet sure whether my clones meet these criteria or not.
bella BTW means 'beautiful'.
It's not had a repot but it has had a wash and brush up. Fortunately the dead leaves on this plant are relatively easily removed.For scale the cup is roughly 13 cm diam although this was damned tricky to measure since the terminal spines are quite spiky.
Unusually for me this pot doesn't have a drainage hole.
I bought this with the saucer attached to the cup, and at the time I didn't have the balls to get the drill out and attack a brand new pot. However, when I repot this plant I will try to drill a hole.This plant is one of the filiferous agaves I wrote up for CW back in 2020 with fibres peeling away from the leaf edges. I've several clones of this, so the one shown here is amongst the smallest. All are moderately slow growing, so my largest specimen, another from David Kirkbright, must be a really good age since it's now in a 35 cm diam. pan and will need another repot in the not too distant future. This then is a fair sized clump with dozens of heads and I'm wondering how big this has to be to flower. In contrast the cup and saucer clump here has only 4 heads so is still a youngster.
An interesting feature of this plant is that it's reported to form "fairy rings" with age as the centre of the clump dies off and the offsets grow away from the middle.
BTW, I've never grown A. toumeyana subsp toumeyana, so if anyone has a spare offset I'd love to trade.
A significant difference between the two subspecies is that subsp bella is recorded as having flat-topped rosettes with smaller leaves. I'm not yet sure whether my clones meet these criteria or not.
bella BTW means 'beautiful'.
