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Carol and I had the opportunity to take a working vacation to Madagascar in September. It is the fourth largest island in the world, larger than California, but smaller than Texas, covering 227,800 square miles, the island is about 1000 miles long and 250 miles wide. We flew from Phoenix, Arizona to London (about 10 […]
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Leave a Comment (11) →Agave striata and Agave stricta are similar looking plants that both belong to the group Striatae. Agave striata has a wide ranging distribution and can be found in much of the Chihuahuan Desert Region mostly from central Coahuila and Nuevo Leon south into northern Zacatecas, southwestern Tamaulipas, much of San Luis Potosi, and into Hidalgo. […]
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Leave a Comment (0) →On a recent trip with Brian Kemble and Jeff Chemnick to east central Mexico and the states of Hidalgo, Queretaro, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi and Tamaulipas, I had the good fortune to further examine Yucca queretaroensis growing at a total of five separate localities. Our first stop for these awesome yuccas was along the road […]
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Leave a Comment (9) →We pick up the tale of Agave turneri on the afternoon of the first day of my visit to the Sierra Cucapá with cactologist Peter Breslin. I had visited the east side of the Sierra Cucapá twice before, once in March of 2010 with fellow plant nerd Scott Calhoun, and then again in May 2011 with […]
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Leave a Comment (8) →In the far northeastern corner of Baja California lies the Sierra Cucapá, a northwest-southeast trending, granitic-core mountain range that is situated between the Laguna Salada to the west and the Cerro Prieto Volcano to the east. The Cerro Prieto geothermal field sits about 25 KM south of Mexicali. The Sierra Cucapá, along with the Sierra […]
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Leave a Comment (0) →Yucca queretaroensis was first described in 1989 by Ignacio Piña Luján in the journal Cactáceas y Suculentas Mexicana, 34(3), pp. 51-56. The type locality is from near the town of Bucareli in Queretaro, Mexico. While studying the plants of the Rio Moctezuma basin in Queretaro, Piña Luján found these tall, trunk-forming plants growing on the […]
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Leave a Comment (7) →This beautiful species is seen in many localities in northern and northeastern Mexico, and appears to be quite variable both vegetatively and in the inflorescence depending on the locality. This species was initially called Agave macroculmis by Dr. Howard Scott Gentry in his Agaves of Continental North America with the type (the plant that the […]
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Leave a Comment (3) →Agave ovatifolia was first brought in to the horticulture trade in the United States by renowned Texas nurseryman, Lynn Lowrey in the mid-1980’s as an undescribed species. In 2000, I was sent a photo of an agave that I knew right away was not described in the literature and set about tracking down the history […]
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Leave a Comment (8) →Agave schidigera is a medium-sized species, reaching about 1.5-2.5 feet tall by 2.5-3 feet across (45-75 cm by 75-90 cm), although the occasional plant can get larger if grown in a bit of shade or given copious quantities of water and/or fertilizer. The medium green to dark green leaves are bayonet shaped, but flex too […]
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Leave a Comment (0) →Agave pelona is an incredible plant that only occurs in three small mountain ranges of extremely arid northwestern Sonora, Mexico. The species name, pelona, is drawn from the Spanish word pelon, meaning bald, a reference to the lack of teeth along the leaf edges. The mescalero who first took Howard Scott Gentry to these plants […]
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