Agaves
Images copyright by Mark A. Chappell
These are some of the common large agave species found in southwestern gardens. The one on the left, with long, straplike leaves edged with vicious hooked spines and tipped with a very sharp point, is often called a 'century plant'.
I've taken many pictures of these plants in an effort to capture an abstract sense of their patterns, forms, and sharp spines; the (taken with an extreme wideangle lens on an overcast day that gave soft, even light) is my favorite. The shorter-leafed agave at right is smaller and more compact. Most agaves flower just once, sending up a huge stalk with hundreds of blossoms that mature into fleshy fruits, after which the leaf rosette withers and dies.
Both were growing in the Botannical Gardens at the University of California, Riverside.
