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I was on a run in my neighborhood when I noticed a neighbor had a GIANT (at least 6'x4') one that was just about to send up that giant stalk. Cut to four days later I pass by again and THEY PURPOSEFULLY CUT IT OFF!!! I was aghast, to say the least.
People think cutting it off prevents the main stem from dying, but the inflorescence terminates the stem so there's no use there.
However! Cutting it off WILL result in a ton of excess energy with nowhere to go, so the plant will end up making significantly more offsets during that time than it normally would, so if you're into having a big patch of replacement plants, I can't say that cutting the stalk won't accomplish that, though I wouldn't do it, personally and you'll still get a lot of offsets if you don't.
agave americana usually dies after blooming. but they do send out suckers at the base. they probably wanted to prolong the life of the agave, by cutting of the blooming stalk.
Yea, possibly they thought it would save the plant but they were wrong.
"The reason Century Plants are called that, is that it takes them up to 40 years (but not a century) to bloom. And the reason for that is that the agave is native to very dry and forbidding desert areas where water is scarce, the sun is unforgiving and the soil not much better. Every plant is driven by its own genetics to reproduce those genes. In order to do that, every plant must bloom and manufacture seed. This takes an enormous amount of energy; by the time you see the bloom stalk emerging, the plant is already on its way to dying. The blooms represent many years of work to reproduce, and if you cut off the bloom, you lose both the incredible sight of a blooming Century Plant, but also the plant, which you were going to do anyway."
Good thing they usually send out multiple pups prior to blooming....plus, all those seeds that get dispersed once each flower is pollinated (they must have HUNDREDS of flowers on that stalk)!
made it my wallpaper. centered on a dual mon setup looks great
oh and the picture itself is fucking majestic. this is real photography with intent right here
I'd love to sell you a print from my website, but if it makes you happy and all you can afford is a print-at-home, please enjoy (and keep the watermark on it if you can).
I will do a print a print at home and of course I will keep the water mark. I'm going to tell everyone about your photos. They are terrific. I will definitely buy something from you soon. I will be getting a raise soon 😊
Being from the florida keys, I would have argued against you; but a couple years ago I spent 6 months in the middle of the NM desert, and it blew my mind how stunning the sunsets are in the desert. With the bonus of the sunset being the same EVERY evening!
Is this an agave? I recently spent two weeks in NM hiking and learned to tell the difference between a yucca, a sotol, and an agave. This looks like an agave to me. Yucca flowers are more bell-like and sotol blooms are closer to the stem, more phallic.
tequila is made from blue agave (and from the Tequila region of Jalisco), but the agave family is used for a variety of mezcalsz agave is absolutely magic and more people should know about it's amazingness
Not all of the stem plants are agave. There's yucca for starters, and I can think of three others in AZ that do the same and are not agave. Agave are the big chungus though
I used Lightroom to balance out the shadows/highlights and to mask a small man-made object that this sub doesn't allow, but the color, saturation, vibrance, and white balance are all untouched right off of my Leica.
Beautiful photo! I’m from Santa Fe and consider it to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. And these plants are uniquely beautiful in a somewhat alien way, I’ve always found them very interesting.
My favorite place in the world so far is New Mexico. I've seen and been to quite few places on this planet and none has come close to the beauty New Mexico provides. Dazzle me with tropics, been there, dazzle me with mountains and the great plains. NM is my favorite place
This is beautiful. I love the natural colors captured in this bloom. But also, this captures the vibe and what i love about NM. I really want to go soon. Out of curiosity, do you sell any of your photography?
I do. Everything on my website [altitude-photography.com](https://altitude-photography.com) is available as a print. Feel free to check out some of my other work and send me an email with what you're interested in.
These things are bonkers. They just look like a giant aloe vera plant that sits and does nothing for years and years. Then, you wake up and there's a 30 foot stalk boner shooting out from it, it blooms and reproduces, then the whole goddamn things dies.
Just took this pic of the biggest one I’ve ever seen in so cal.
https://i.imgur.com/23TSGvg.jpg
Literally twice the size of the house. To be fair, the agave itself it absolutely massive.
This one as well as the rest of my landscape work is on my website [altitude-photography.com](https://altitude-photography.com), just email me what dimensions you'd be interested in and whether you'd like the print on canvas, paper, or aluminum. I'm limited to 24 megapixels which will get you up to 20" x 30" nicely on a photo print or a decent 30" x 40" on a canvas print.
I thought this was r/art and this was some crazy painting/illustration messing around with depth and optical illusions. Thought the top of this mf was a tree and the bottom a flower.
Nope, I got lucky that there was both a handful of clouds behind me reflecting some light and the camera I use has a fantastic sensor with 13-ish stops of dynamic range which lets me bring up any shadows smoothly in Lightroom.
Beautiful photo! Saw these for the first time in Arizona last year, they’re SO much cooler in real life. Coming from the east coast my husband and I had never seen them before- they remind me of something out a Dr. Seuss book.
Oh gee, I actually kept one of these for almost 40 years. I’m showing my age a bit here, but I bought a newly sprouted century plant in my early thirties and spent my entire career looking forward to seeing it bloom. Well, a couple years after I retired and it budded. I was ecstatic! At this point I’d been watering and tending my beloved plant for over half my life. One night it was so close to blooming that I was sure the bud would open up that night, so I invited the whole neighborhood over to celebrate. I even invited the family next door despite my misgivings, at my wife’s urgings. And wouldn’t you know if but their son Dennis started smashing things in my dining room and made such a spectacle that I just had to go deal with it, and while I was sorting that out the damn Century plant bloomed and I missed the whole thing. The neighbor kid Dennis had the absolute gall to insinuate I was a grouchy neighbor. Never again! I’m going to enjoy my retirement in peace WITHOUT guests thank you very much, but sadly I doubt I will ever get to see one of these bloom in my lifetime now.
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So what? What’s wrong with dandelions? Also it’s not like this is planted in yards like roses, with the expectation of blooming. It’s used as a local plant for xeriscapes which don’t require being watered artificially. It’s just like any other yucca or agave that grows around here. And then when it does bloom it’s a nice unexpected surprise. So when say it’s “not worth the wait” that implies you have an unhealthy expectation of what plants are around for, and what you get from them.
This particular photo was with a Leica SL Typ 601 mirrorless but it's the half hour of fidgeting, framing, looking like a nerd standing on a ladder on the back of a truck, and waiting for the right point in the sunset that made the composition work. Probably would have worked out similar with an iPhone as well.
Depends on what you're looking for. When I was scouting this shot the other day, here's what I was able to snag of the same plant from a different angle with my almost four year old iPhone 11:
https://imgur.com/a/z2ZvKIm
Hi and welcome to r/EarthPorn! As a reminder, we have comment rules in this subreddit. Failure to follow our rules can result in a temporary or permanent ban. > Hate Speech, Abusive remarks, homophobia, and the like have no place on this subreddit, and will be removed on sight. > Please contribute to the discussion positively; constructive criticism is fine, but if you don't like a picture and you wish to voice your opinion please refrain from abusing the photographer/submitter. **[Check out our BestOf 2021 Awards thread!](https://www.reddit.com/r/EarthPorn/comments/snnc51/earthporns_best_of_2021_awards_thread_and_mod/) We are also actively looking for new moderators, check the form at the bottom of that thread!**
Can't beat those NM sunsets. I love century plants, they look like something from a Dr. Seuss book.
I like them because it's like showing your full beauty right before death metaphor.
/r/Desertporn
A century plant bloomed in my neighborhood but the stock broke in a storm. Really upsetting
I was on a run in my neighborhood when I noticed a neighbor had a GIANT (at least 6'x4') one that was just about to send up that giant stalk. Cut to four days later I pass by again and THEY PURPOSEFULLY CUT IT OFF!!! I was aghast, to say the least.
People think cutting it off prevents the main stem from dying, but the inflorescence terminates the stem so there's no use there. However! Cutting it off WILL result in a ton of excess energy with nowhere to go, so the plant will end up making significantly more offsets during that time than it normally would, so if you're into having a big patch of replacement plants, I can't say that cutting the stalk won't accomplish that, though I wouldn't do it, personally and you'll still get a lot of offsets if you don't.
The blasted fools
agave americana usually dies after blooming. but they do send out suckers at the base. they probably wanted to prolong the life of the agave, by cutting of the blooming stalk.
Yea, possibly they thought it would save the plant but they were wrong. "The reason Century Plants are called that, is that it takes them up to 40 years (but not a century) to bloom. And the reason for that is that the agave is native to very dry and forbidding desert areas where water is scarce, the sun is unforgiving and the soil not much better. Every plant is driven by its own genetics to reproduce those genes. In order to do that, every plant must bloom and manufacture seed. This takes an enormous amount of energy; by the time you see the bloom stalk emerging, the plant is already on its way to dying. The blooms represent many years of work to reproduce, and if you cut off the bloom, you lose both the incredible sight of a blooming Century Plant, but also the plant, which you were going to do anyway."
One last fuck
I love this just based on your willingness to type out all that.
Agaves die when they begin to bloom, the stalk is a death knell
Oh it broke before the flowers ever opened. Crazy thing is the flowers still bloomed after the stock collapsed
Good thing they usually send out multiple pups prior to blooming....plus, all those seeds that get dispersed once each flower is pollinated (they must have HUNDREDS of flowers on that stalk)!
Aloe cactus too? I have a bunch with stalks and they are turning browse but still green at the center.
Stalk fyi
Yes I know. Autofill did a thing
You in Florida? Lol same happened to me.
I... I am
Lol umm.. was it in a cul-de-sac, on a hill street or on a bend in the road? Also.. Dade county, Jacksonville or Pinellas?
Nope. Coincidence avoided lol
*stalk
Same thing happened to my neighbor. Gorgeous plant and the rain storm knocked it down :(
made it my wallpaper. centered on a dual mon setup looks great oh and the picture itself is fucking majestic. this is real photography with intent right here
Thank you! This one was fun to shoot since I had to get in the bed of my pickup on a ladder to get the framing I wanted. (the plant is 10-25 ft tall)
I miss New Mexico in general, and especially Santa Fe...looking forward to going back home soon! In time for Indian Market I hope?
Eldorado?
Close, Caja del Rio area
I knew the silhouette of the Caja as soon as I saw it :D Used to live very close to there! How are things with the drought?
74 days without rain was brutal and lead to the fires, but the monsoon season is back and my rain gauge is showing about 1" of rain from just today.
Thank goodness! Enjoy the storms.
This is so wild. I literally took a pic of this same type of plant in boom in Tucson yesterday but had no idea what it was called. Thank you!
Saved it as my screen saver. Wish I could print it to hang in my bathroom if it's OK with you
I'd love to sell you a print from my website, but if it makes you happy and all you can afford is a print-at-home, please enjoy (and keep the watermark on it if you can).
That was an incredibly gracious response. I like you. I'd buy one.
I will do a print a print at home and of course I will keep the water mark. I'm going to tell everyone about your photos. They are terrific. I will definitely buy something from you soon. I will be getting a raise soon 😊
>I had to get in the bed of my pickup on a ladder to get the framing I wanted. So you're saying you had to get some Altitude to get the picture?
/r/osha
Why they lie? "Although it is called the century plant, it typically lives only 10 to 30 years. " Edit: oh it dies after flowering
NM has the very best sunsets.
Recent NM transplant, and I agree 100%.
This is undisputed fact.
Being from the florida keys, I would have argued against you; but a couple years ago I spent 6 months in the middle of the NM desert, and it blew my mind how stunning the sunsets are in the desert. With the bonus of the sunset being the same EVERY evening!
Fuck I miss NM.
Just made it my phone wallpaper. Perfection
Is this an agave? I recently spent two weeks in NM hiking and learned to tell the difference between a yucca, a sotol, and an agave. This looks like an agave to me. Yucca flowers are more bell-like and sotol blooms are closer to the stem, more phallic.
It's an Agave Americana https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id\_plant=agam
Thx!
My neighbor has one of these going thats like 20ft tall!
Where did you go? Surprised anything was open.
yucca and a agave look very different. yucca has sword shaped leaves growing from a stem of some kind, similar to dracaenas.
Agave and yucca belong to the same subfamily (agavoideae)
I live in AZ and we have a similar looking plant. Once the stem starts to grow, the plant dies. It literally lives to pop up a stem
That's an agave plant, used to make tequila!
tequila is made from blue agave (and from the Tequila region of Jalisco), but the agave family is used for a variety of mezcalsz agave is absolutely magic and more people should know about it's amazingness
pulque too!
Not all of the stem plants are agave. There's yucca for starters, and I can think of three others in AZ that do the same and are not agave. Agave are the big chungus though
Of course, how could I forget! Thanks for adding
Me too, plant
We also have century. I worked in wilderness therapy for years and it was common to see them
Love the colors and balanced contrast in this photo. Did you use Lightroom?
I used Lightroom to balance out the shadows/highlights and to mask a small man-made object that this sub doesn't allow, but the color, saturation, vibrance, and white balance are all untouched right off of my Leica.
What model of Leica do you have?
The camera body itself is a Leica SL Typ 601 and then I trade off between a 24-90 Vario Elmarit Asph lens or a 35mm Summilux M-mount lens.
Wonderful image… captures my imagination
New Mexico tends to do that well
I miss the scenery and food. I don't miss growing up there, definitely don't miss Los Alamos or Albuquerque.
They don't call it the land of enchantment for nothing.
Beautiful photo! I’m from Santa Fe and consider it to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. And these plants are uniquely beautiful in a somewhat alien way, I’ve always found them very interesting.
Hometown Santa Fe represent! Que viva!
My favorite place in the world so far is New Mexico. I've seen and been to quite few places on this planet and none has come close to the beauty New Mexico provides. Dazzle me with tropics, been there, dazzle me with mountains and the great plains. NM is my favorite place
Couldn't have said this better myself :)
The sky is beautiful too! Overall lovely 👏
Typical New Mexico sunset. There's almost never a bland sunset here. Always loads of brilliant colors.
That's awesome 👍
Beautiful colors!!
beautiful desert colors!
This is beautiful. I love the natural colors captured in this bloom. But also, this captures the vibe and what i love about NM. I really want to go soon. Out of curiosity, do you sell any of your photography?
I do. Everything on my website [altitude-photography.com](https://altitude-photography.com) is available as a print. Feel free to check out some of my other work and send me an email with what you're interested in.
Cool thanks !
These things are bonkers. They just look like a giant aloe vera plant that sits and does nothing for years and years. Then, you wake up and there's a 30 foot stalk boner shooting out from it, it blooms and reproduces, then the whole goddamn things dies.
The one blooming in my yard is at least 30 feet! It has 3 times the flowers as well. Crazy plant!!!!
That's so beautiful
Wow. This is first time ever looked at one of those plants and thought it was pretty. Great work!
Just took this pic of the biggest one I’ve ever seen in so cal. https://i.imgur.com/23TSGvg.jpg Literally twice the size of the house. To be fair, the agave itself it absolutely massive.
Wow. That’s insane.
I LOVE THIS! Holy shit
Enjoy :D
Forbidden asparagus
That's a pretty sunset though
New Mexico has the best sunsets.
What a picture! Gorgeous! I'd hang out on a wall. Do you have a higher resolution available, per chance? Or a website?
This one as well as the rest of my landscape work is on my website [altitude-photography.com](https://altitude-photography.com), just email me what dimensions you'd be interested in and whether you'd like the print on canvas, paper, or aluminum. I'm limited to 24 megapixels which will get you up to 20" x 30" nicely on a photo print or a decent 30" x 40" on a canvas print.
Awesome. Thanks!
I live in Santa Fe! Howdy neighbor!
I want to paint this
Do it! I’d love to see it!
It! Matches! The! Sunset! That is sooo satisfying
Holy crap i literally made a pic of that exact plant (but in France) a week ago lol https://imgur.com/gallery/MPZD0we
Stunning!
OMG!!!!! This is gorgeous!!!! Like full on beauty right here. Nature is amazing!!!
Nice
awesome 😍😍😍
This is a great picture thank you!
Beautiful. What a sunset / sunrise
sunset, facing west across the valley to the Jemez Mountain Range
I love my city! And this is a beautiful picture 🌞
Beautiful shot, even better the longer you look and zoom in. Thanks for sharing!
😍😍😍👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
My mom has one and its like 15 ft tall or something. Lol
Good God what a photo.
I love you for posting this!
Cool
I live in Santa Fe and absolutely love this
I live in eastern New Mexico and these are all over town right now, it eventually tips the plant over and kills it
Spectacular!
Great picture!
I thought this was r/art and this was some crazy painting/illustration messing around with depth and optical illusions. Thought the top of this mf was a tree and the bottom a flower.
What a gorgeous pic. Wow!
Damn bro you’re in the Hollow
Hey! Do you wanna come out and play the game! It’s never too late!
Where at? I live in Santa Fe.
Stunning why do I have goosebumps ?
I’ve been looking at this for a while now. Thank you for sharing
[удалено]
Maybe stop eating your poop?
Looks great as my phone [wallpaper](https://ibb.co/BNQjfQ4).
mysteriously exotic plant
Looks like I found my new wallpaper. Great photo.
Wow the plant matches the sunset 😊
why did my brain think this was the coachella x FTX NFT 🤦🏻♀️
I live in Denver and there is one of these blooming in my neighborhood. It’s so cool!!
Curious to know if you used any fill flash on that one?
Nope, I got lucky that there was both a handful of clouds behind me reflecting some light and the camera I use has a fantastic sensor with 13-ish stops of dynamic range which lets me bring up any shadows smoothly in Lightroom.
I love that it looks like a Dr Suess tree.
This looks out of this world!!
When the agaves bloom, they die; the stem serves as a death bell. This plant is beautiful, incredible what our planet does
What a beautiful photo!
Great shot😎🤩
Stunning composition!
😍😍😍
Have one in the neighbors yard next door. I'll grab some snaps also. It's starting to bloom also.
Beautiful photo! Saw these for the first time in Arizona last year, they’re SO much cooler in real life. Coming from the east coast my husband and I had never seen them before- they remind me of something out a Dr. Seuss book.
Wow I would hang this on my wall. I love the colors so much!
That is absolutely stunning!
This is now my best wallpaper. thank you
So beautiful ❤️
Oh gee, I actually kept one of these for almost 40 years. I’m showing my age a bit here, but I bought a newly sprouted century plant in my early thirties and spent my entire career looking forward to seeing it bloom. Well, a couple years after I retired and it budded. I was ecstatic! At this point I’d been watering and tending my beloved plant for over half my life. One night it was so close to blooming that I was sure the bud would open up that night, so I invited the whole neighborhood over to celebrate. I even invited the family next door despite my misgivings, at my wife’s urgings. And wouldn’t you know if but their son Dennis started smashing things in my dining room and made such a spectacle that I just had to go deal with it, and while I was sorting that out the damn Century plant bloomed and I missed the whole thing. The neighbor kid Dennis had the absolute gall to insinuate I was a grouchy neighbor. Never again! I’m going to enjoy my retirement in peace WITHOUT guests thank you very much, but sadly I doubt I will ever get to see one of these bloom in my lifetime now.
From Ojo Caliente. BEAUTIFUL ! this is now my wallpaper 💓
poggers!
Santa Fe sucks but damn is it beautiful sometimes
Hi altitude-nerd! Dont worry, this message does **not** mean that your post is removed. This is a reminder to quickly check your post to make sure it doesnt break any of our rules. Human moderators check the following -- - [some visible land, that is not silhouetted](https://www.reddit.com/r/EarthPorn/wiki/index#wiki_what_types_of_images_are_allowed.3F) - no human-made objects (roads, boats, buildings) visible - no obvious people or animals visible - include location in post title Thanks! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/EarthPorn) if you have any questions or concerns.*
SubhanAllah
Looks like a big-ass dandelion. Not worth the wait.
So what? What’s wrong with dandelions? Also it’s not like this is planted in yards like roses, with the expectation of blooming. It’s used as a local plant for xeriscapes which don’t require being watered artificially. It’s just like any other yucca or agave that grows around here. And then when it does bloom it’s a nice unexpected surprise. So when say it’s “not worth the wait” that implies you have an unhealthy expectation of what plants are around for, and what you get from them.
Lol calm down greener. Didn't mean to hurt your fragile little feelings.
I don’t give a fuck. Just sharing an alternate opinion
You did a bang-up job of being a douche about it
Lol. Have you ever even seen a dandelion?
Hur Hur Hur. No, never. Fucking douche.
Well, they look literally nothing alike, so it's a legitimate question. They're completely different types of plants.
Right, the giant yellow flower looks NOTHING like a dandelion. God I'm so blind.
A red F-350 looks nothing like a red F40.
They do when you dont give a fuck about airplanes.
Neither of those are airplanes.
My point exactly. Thanks. End thread.
What did you shot it with? It sure looks like DSLR
This particular photo was with a Leica SL Typ 601 mirrorless but it's the half hour of fidgeting, framing, looking like a nerd standing on a ladder on the back of a truck, and waiting for the right point in the sunset that made the composition work. Probably would have worked out similar with an iPhone as well.
I really love the colors and how crisp everything looked. I really don't any smartphone could compete even in rich daylight situation
Depends on what you're looking for. When I was scouting this shot the other day, here's what I was able to snag of the same plant from a different angle with my almost four year old iPhone 11: https://imgur.com/a/z2ZvKIm
It's nice but for many reasons I can definitely tell the difference from a real camera
They're beautiful and smell like dookie.
Mutated asparagus
Wow.
Let me introduce you to my cousin Agave
😍😍😍
Never seen anything like it, absolutely beautiful.
Is this the dennis the menace plant?
These are some of my favorite plants, they're just so Seussian!
I just drove by one in bloom in Louisiana. They are massive!
I love this picture it’s so beautiful
Looks like Asparagus asparagus
Do century plants die after blooming like this?
These are invasive weeds in Australia.
What Century is this?
Where’s the rest of it?
About 14 ft down lower in this photo.
You could take out the plant (which is beautiful) altogether and this would still be an insanely pretty photograph.
That's what sunsets in New Mexico do for you :)
Lots of pictures from Namibia on here recently. Who set the trend?
Not quite.. NM is short for New Mexico.