Murphey'S Century Plant (Agave murpheyi)
Description
This agave produces a rosette of leaves up to 80 centimeters long by 20 centimeters wide in shades of green to blue-green with pale banding. They develop a red coloration during flowering. The leaves may curl slightly toward the center. They are lined with small, straight teeth and tipped with a spine up to 2 centimeters long. The plant produces an inflorescence 3 to 4 meters tall with many flowers along the branches. The flowers are greenish with purple or brown tips and are up to 7.5 centimeters long. The fruit is a woody capsule 5 to 7 centimeters long containing seeds but these are rarely produced with the flowers aborting before the fruits form. Despite being untended for more than 500 years Hohokam agave continue to grow at a few old archaeological sites. This agave produces only by bulbils and hybridizes with agave chrysantha in Arizona (almost all species labeled as murphy agave are in fact hybrids with the murphy agave being a hybrid itself palmeri x vivipara).
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum: Magnoliophyta
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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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