Agave perotensis – 3-inch pots

Description

This name of this plant has an interesting naming history. In 1830, Schiede gave a brief description of plants growing in the “Malpays de la Jolla” and called them Agave obscura. In 1963, Howard Scott Gentry traveled to the region and collected specimens from there and maintained the name. However, a student of Arturo Gomez Pompa went to the Malpays de la Jolla and could not find Gentry’s plant, but did find the plant Gentry was calling Agave polyacantha var. xalapensis which is a very different plant. In 1990, German agave expert, Bernd Ullrich assigned the name Agave obscura to those plants Gentry called Agave polyacantha var. xalapensis. He then renamed the plants Gentry called Agave obscura as Agave horrida subsp. perotensis. Just recently, I elevated the name to species status giving us the combination Agave perotensis. Read my article in the Cactus and Succulent Journal Vol. 96 No. 3 for the details.