Agave Americana, or Century Plant, as it’s more widely known, is a species of flowering plant in the family Agavaceae.
It’s native to Mexico but has become naturalized in the West Indies, parts of South America, the southern Mediterranean Basin, parts of Africa, India, China, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia … and Ventnor, Isle of Wight.
Apparently, this spectacular plant takes around 25 years to flower and once it has, then dies.
Ventnor’s glory
We’ve been watching a wonderful example of the plant grow in Ventnor for the last ten years and this summer a gargantuan spear rose up rapidly from the centre of the plant to host these beautiful yellow flowers. We reckon it’s about 25 feet tall now.
People probably queue at a Botanic Gardens around the world to see this wonderful plant in bloom, but you can see it simply by walking down Madeira Road in Ventnor and turning right into the top of St Catherine Street (see embedded map below).
According to Hardy Tropicals the Agave Americana is,
“An ideal plant for well drained, sun baked gardens.”
See it whilst you can
It’s sad to think the plant will soon die off, but it’s been wonderful seeing the bees buzzing around it over the last few weeks.
Catch it whilst you can.
