Pulque agave (Agave salmiana)
Description
Agave salmiana is a species of the family Asparagaceae, native to central and southern Mexico. It is also reportedly naturalized in South Africa and Spain, specially in the Canary Islands. This species, also called Agave of Salm or Salm-Dick, is dedicated to the German prince and botanist Joseph zu Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck (1773-1861). A. Salmiana presents a spiral-shaped rosette with large flared and erect leaves. These leaves are thick, dark green with a large sting at the tip and strong spines on the edges. When a leaf has unfolded, it leaves an imprint on the leaf underneath. Like most agaves, the species is monocarpic, that is to say it only flowers once and then dies. This flowering occurs after 15 to 25 years in the form of a vertical floral stem, typically up to 4 m (13 ft) long and bearing greenish-yellow flowers. The largest specimens have been significantly taller. One specimen growing at the Strawberry Canyon Botanical Garden on the campus of U. C. Berkeley, Berkeley, California in 1974 produced an inflorescence with a total height of 52 feet (16 m) of which the scape or peduncle was about 39' 4" (12 m) and the panicle per se was 13 feet (4 m)[6] Hermann J.H. Jacobsen states that the inflorescence of A. salmiana has reached an overall height of 62 feet (19 m), making the inflorescence of A. salmiana the tallest of any known species of plant.
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum:
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Class: Liliopsida
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Order: Asparagales
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Family: Asparagaceae
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Genus: Agave
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