Thursday, March 06, 2008

Mystery Plant

On his visit last week,Dan showed us these photos of a mysterious plant he photographed in San Diego. I think it is South African but don't really have the botanical chops to ID it. Readers?

7 comments:

Natasha Mhatre said...

I pretty bad too, but I think this is some kind of a bromeliad. Tropical Americas and one in west Africa says the Wiki.

Natasha Mhatre said...

Lindmania serrulata?
http://www.bsi.org/brom_info/gallery/Lindmania/serrulata.html
from here
http://www.bsi.org/

Daniel Gauss said...

Just to help out a little, the "bloom" is over 6 feet tall, and probably 16-18" in circumfrence at the base. The property owner is certain it's interstellar in origin..
Oh yeah, it says its name is Audrey.

Mike Spies said...

I also think that it is a bromeliad. This family of plants is fairly common in tropical America.

There are a number of creatures - notably birds, insects, and crabs that have adapted to the niche created by these tree dwelling plants.

Reid Farmer said...

We used to see these in Santa Barbara all the time. It's a type of agave - Swan's neck agave (Agave attenuata).

Daniel Gauss said...

That looks like a winnah! I passed the link on to Dr Rose, who called *me* "brilliant"..(sorry Reid). She said it's on a 15 month bloom cycle,and this year it got so big it fell over. She feels the base plant may be dying. She's also happy to know she's not slated for future alien abduction.

Reid Farmer said...

Well even if it isn't interstellar, it certainly looks like something out of "The Little Shop of Horrors" (FEED ME!!)