Agave MARMORATA - Marbled agave, Agave marmorata.
Agave is a genus of evergreen perennial herbaceous plants in the family Asparagaceae, comprising about 300 species distributed across the Caribbean islands and in arid regions of North, Central, and South America. In cultivation, no more than 50 species are widespread.
Representatives of the genus form rosettes of fleshy leaves, often with prickly margins and sharp tips. Leaves can be broad or narrow, colored in gray-green, glaucous, or green shades, sometimes with variegated coloration. The stem, as a rule, is shortened. The plants are adapted to prolonged droughts, spreading outward with powerful roots, absorbing moisture from surface soil layers and storing it in the leaves.
Flowering occurs at 15-20 years of age, after which the plant dies. A tall flower stalk emerges from the rosette of robust leaves, bearing at its top an inflorescence in the form of a panicle or raceme, usually yellow or cream-colored. The fruits are capsules with flat seeds. After seed maturation, the aerial parts of the mother plant die off, and daughter offshoots grow from the rhizomes.
Marbled agave is an unusual stemless or short-stemmed medium-sized plant. Rosettes are 1.2-1.3 m (3.9-4.3 ft) wide and up to 2 m (6.6 ft) in diameter, large, with approximately 30-50 leaves, often drooping, widely spreading, more or less irregular in shape with deformed leaves flattened against the ground. Leaves are 100-135 cm (39-53 in) long, 20-30 cm (8-12 in) wide, softly fleshy, twisted, curved away from the center, broadly lanceolate, often wavy, thick at the base, flat above, convex below, usually with a characteristic sandpaper-like texture, dark green to slightly grayish, often zoned (distinctly banded) with pale blue and grayish-green, but highly variable across different populations and clones. The shape and pattern of the leaves also depend on growing conditions. The back of the leaves in young specimens is often purple. Margins are deeply serrated, with more or less numerous teeth, mainly 6-12 mm (0.24-0.47 in) long, 2-5 cm (0.8-2 in) apart. The inflorescence is a panicle 5-6.5 m (16-21 ft) tall with a thick peduncle and 20-25 large, diffuse, scattered umbels in the upper half of the stalk, usually without bulbils. Flowers are small, yellow, with equal tepals 14-16 mm (0.55-0.63 in) long and 4 mm (0.16 in) wide. Fruits are oblong capsules.