Agave attenuata.
It is also known as Agave attenuata Salm-Dyck after the person who first described it.
Commonly known as Elephant’s trunk or Fox Tail Agave it is a common plant in Brisbane.
Plants grow from an underground stem or rhizome.
Young ones have a basal rosette of leaves but older ones develop an above ground stem up to
1.5 m tall which is visible as the old leaves fall off.
Offsets result in the formation of large clumps.
The succulent roughly ovate leaves are up to 70 cm long and 15 cm wide.
There are no teeth and the soft terminal spine may fray.
Leaves can be green, grey-green or bluish-green.
Inflorescences are a spike up to 4.5 m long that arches over so the tip almost reaches the ground.
It may be unbranched or have very short side branches with bracts at each division.
Flowers, on pedicels may be solitary, in pairs or in clusters of up to 40.
The tubular yellow to greenish-yellow flowers are up to 8 cm long.
The bases of the 6 tepals are fused and the lobes may be erect or curve backwards.
The 6 stamens insert on the top of, or inside the tube.
On very fine filaments they extend well past the perianth.
The linear anthers release their pollen before the stigma is receptive.
The inferior ovary has 3 locules with many ovules.
The style has a 3-lobed stigma with papillae on it.
The oblong or ovate brown capsules have many flattened black seeds.
The plant dies after it flowers.
Reproduction is mainly vegetative via the offsets.
Two subspecies are described with one having teeth on the leaves.
J.F.
