Huge plant that waited 80 years to flower has month to live
Source: AP
BY MIKE HOUSEHOLDER
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) -- A towering American agave plant that waited 80 years to flower and produce seeds is dying after fulfilling its purpose and will be taken down next month, said its caretaker at the University of Michigan's botanical gardens.
The unusually old specimen has called Ann Arbor home since 1934. It grew to 28 feet tall after a rapid growth spurt last spring that preceded its flowering, which ended last year. Once it stopped flowering, the agave went into rapid decline, which is normal for the species, said Mike Palmer, horticulture manager at the school's Matthaei Botanical Gardens.
"There's really no value to leaving it up anymore, because it's going downhill so quickly," he said.
The agave produced "tons" of seeds, including one pod that contained 86 of them, Palmer said. Students have been picking viable seeds that will be distributed to botanical gardens throughout the U.S. Some seedlings will be sold in the university's garden store.
FULL story at link.
In a Feb. 17, 2015 photo, a 20-plus-foot-tall plant that has lived an unusually long 80 years at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., is done flowering for the one and only time in its life and will be chopped down next month. Matthaei Botanical Gardens horticulture manager Mike Palmer says the American agave will have its 20-plus-foot-long stalk chopped down sometime in March. The agave completed its one-time-only flowering process last year. The agave that has called Ann Arbor home since 1934 started growing rapidly taller last spring, an indicator it was preparing to bloom. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
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A town in Jalisco, Mexico, properly named Tequila, actually holds the patent on the name, but NAFTA also states Tequila and Mezcal as distinctive products of Mexico.
Also, they harvest Agave tequilana - the agave tequila is made from, for tequila production, at around 7-8 years old when their sugars are at a peak in preparation for flowering. Once a plant flowers it's used up its store of sugar/starch to produce the bloom.
I'm an agave fan. 
Live on forever.
My grandfather had a stroke and passed out, less than a year before he died.
He was so upset they brought him back to life. He was angry. "Why'dja have to go and wake me up?"
He talked about how he was in a place with the most beautiful gardens he had ever seen.
He was a farmer all his life, dropped out of school in the fourth grade to work the plow, and knew all about gardens and growing things.
He said it was just so beautiful, and he felt so happy there, and he just couldn't describe it, but he had tears running down his face as he tried, this grizzled old Montana farmer who never cried over anything.
I would like to think the beautiful agave plant goes to the beautiful gardens to bloom forever.
What do you think, Omaha Steve?
