Saturday, April 17, 2010

Agave shadows


Today I've been reviewing some of the photos from our Mexico trip and I realized that I probably have fifty or so of the agave plant.  The agave is is a beautiful succulent with many varieties, each of them beautiful, but the ones that captivated me are the big Agave Americana, also known as the Century Plant.  They have strong curving leaves edges with beautiful regular spines and in the Mexican sun the shadows create lovely sculptural forms.


This last shadow is more like an echo.  You can clearly see the indentations left by adjacent leaves that unfolded away from the core.  Beautiful!


And here's a photo of the incredible flower that these plants produce (after many years).  This one was about 15 feet tall.  After it blooms, the plant dies; although smaller plants are produced from offsets at the base of the stem. 

You can see more shadow shots from around the world here.

11 comments:

  1. Isn't the agave also edible -I remember something like that from my mother's (Indonesian) cooking...
    The flowers are gorgeous

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm surprised by how tall they grow! 15 feet? Wow! The leaves look rather sharp in that first photo. They create great crispy shadows!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great shots! (15 feet - I didn't know that...)

    Happy SSS!

    BLOGitsePHOTOS

    ReplyDelete
  4. When life gives you agave, make tequila!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wonderful photos... the leaves are so beautiful ! we have the same idea ...
    one of my post for next week is the fact, two of my Century Plants are blooming. Taking pictures like crazy and very sad that I am losing half of my living sculpture that is the focal point of my back yard...

    ReplyDelete
  6. joanna supergood pictures and the flower - that's crazy!!! really good pictures. steven

    ReplyDelete
  7. agave blooming
    crown high above the desert
    heralds royalty

    Your choice of shadows:
    Shadowy tombstone
    Orphaned truck shadows

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Jeanette, it surely is edible--all parts of it. The juice, the flesh, the roots, the flower. And of course there's the tequila too, which Rudee alluded to. All in all an amazing plant.

    Hey Angry Parsnip, I'm totally jealous that you have a garden with agave. Enjoy them while they bloom. Would you get new little plants from them? Someday I'll have may own agave garden--maybe.

    Steven and others--isn't that the most amazing flower? The stem is so strong that is can be used like wood.

    Magical mystical teacher--thank you for that sweet haiku. I like the idea of royalty. To me the flower looks very heraldic.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I really love these pictures of the agave. You picked up the shadows beautifully. The flower stalk is amazing, I didn't know they die after they bloom. Absolutely beautiful.

    ReplyDelete

I really appreciate your comments.