Agaves

[Jox]

Hi everyone, I just thought I should see if there are many members here that collect Agaves? I have just started collecting few myself & would like some help in working out correct id's for them. If there is someone here who knows about Agave's & can help with id's please post below & I will & take some photos of about 8 different species tomorrow & post them here.

Cheers

jox

[Evil Genius]

Sold most of my Agaves but i know some of them pretty well. Maybe i can help you with the ID´s.

[zelly]

i know a few

[bit]

I would like to know if there are tequila agaves in NZ?

[Jox]

Sorry for the delay, I have got a few photos here for you to look at. A few I think I know & have labeled but if I have made a mistake please correct me, also I would like to put names to the unlabeled ones

 

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agave Americana "Medio-picta alba"

 

 

 

2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agave victoria-reginae

 

 

 

3

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

 

 

 

 

 

 

6

 

 

 

 

 

 

7

 

 

 

 

 

 

8

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also picked up these two Dasylirion spp, one was labeled with a name I can not find anywhere & the other was not labeled, if you know what there are please let me know. They are cool looking plants!

 

 

 

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was labeled Dasylirion cedrasarum

 

 

 

2

 

 

 

 

 

Any help in working out the correct names for these plants would be a great help, also if there are any plants here that take your fancy & you are able to pick up from the gold coast send me a PM as most of them are for sale.

Cheers

jox

PS; I too would love to know which species they make tequila from, I watched a doco once about these Indians in the desert in Mexico & they use massive Agave's like watering holes. They walked for days along tracks that had been used for decades & along the way there were these huge Agave's that had the crown cut out & were hollowed out, sitting on top of the hollow was a big flat stone, the Indians cut & hollow out the center & place the stone on them as a way to get water, the stone stops evaporation & new growth. When they come to one of these Agave's they take off the stone & scoop out the liquid onto the ground or into a container (This is no good to drink on a hot day in the middle of the desert, when your dehydrated as it has been sitting under the stone for weeks maybe months & is fermented. The original Tequila!) Once they have scooped out the fermented liquid they re-scrape the hollowed area & place the stone back on top, they wait for half an hour to an hour then remove the stone to find litres of drinkable water! The interesting part was they do use the fermented liquid to get intoxicated. The shit part, they didn't tell you what species of Agave it was but the were massive like A.americana.

[Jox]

I think I may have worked out two more, 5; A. stricta & 6; A. filifera ?

[Stillman]

5 could be right I think