
The Agave Plant's Asparagus Death Fetish (2017) - jjar
https://www.theawl.com/2017/06/the-agave-plants-asparagus-death-fetish/
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hinkley
Not entirely accurate. If you know the whole lifecycle this strange process
can make a hell of a lot more sense.

In the right environment, agave also reproduce vegetatively. They put out
offshoots, some of which will produce their own roots.

Once you are closed in on all sides by clone siblings, your next best bet is
to try to spread to a new spot. Reproducing sexually gives you a chance to
expand to the next few habitable areas.

Then you die, leaving an open space in the middle of all your clones. They
fill in and one of them has an opportunity to repeat the process in a few
years.

~~~
moron4hire
So it's like life replicating Conway's Game of Life.

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hinkley
I suppose you could think of it that way.

My read on this is that desert, rocky terrain, and epiphytic plants find small
microbiomes where they can survive. Once they have exploited those resources,
once they've 'walked' looking for other spots very close by, they can't just
move a couple feet away. They have to fly, and fly far, or die trying.

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dghughes
A hothouse in Halifax, Nova Scotia had an agave that bolted so fast they had
to remove it from the building. I think it grew six inches per day, that just
as interesting that a plant that big can grow that fast.

[https://globalnews.ca/news/4318649/agave-americana-
halifax-p...](https://globalnews.ca/news/4318649/agave-americana-halifax-
public-gardens/)

~~~
athenot
Here in the South, Kudzu is a vine that will grow about a foot a day, and
engulf trees (and abandoned houses).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudzu#/media/File:Kudzu_on_tre...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudzu#/media/File:Kudzu_on_trees_in_Atlanta,_Georgia.jpg)

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
>Kudzu was introduced from Japan into the United States at the Japanese
pavilion in the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

...

>During World War II, kudzu was introduced to Vanuatu and Fiji by United
States Armed Forces to serve as camouflage for equipment and has become a
major weed

The irony.

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AceJohnny2
This was a fun and interesting read. I wanted more like this, but I missed the
part where The Awl stopped publication early this year:

[https://www.theawl.com/2018/01/okay-go-be-as-stupid-as-
you-w...](https://www.theawl.com/2018/01/okay-go-be-as-stupid-as-you-want/)

Damn.

~~~
bhauer
I knew I had made a good decision to read this when I got to the line,
"Mayahuel was not a cactus either." I wonder where this Frank Smith is writing
now.

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code_duck
The appearance is surprising, but familiar if you’ve seen a yucca flower:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Yucca_gl...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Yucca_gloriosa_10.JPG)
or especially the New Mexico version
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/plants/agavoideae/yucca-
ela...](http://www.americansouthwest.net/plants/agavoideae/yucca-
elata5_l.html) (it’s the New Mexico State flower)

It’s also similar to what many grasses do. I suppose they’re all related to
asparagus.

~~~
flatline
Fascinating - I live in NM and have seen both the yucca blossoms but also what
appear to be the same thing as those agave spears. I had assumed they were all
yucca around these parts as the plants that give off the tall spear blossoms
are smaller than the agave I’ve seen in Mexico and SoCal, but I’m thinking
they are just another agave variety.

~~~
dmckeon
Perhaps the lechuguilla plant? [http://www.saguaro-
juniper.com/i_and_i/agavesNyuccas/agavesN...](http://www.saguaro-
juniper.com/i_and_i/agavesNyuccas/agavesNyuccas.htm)

~~~
code_duck
Great, I’ve been wondering what the shorter ones are. They look like the tall
yuccas, but have thinner spines and never seem to get taller. Apparently they
are Yucca baccata.

Also it’s interesting to identify the various types of spiny grass.

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njarboe
The Agave must build up a large store of starch over many years to be able to
grow this reproductive organ so quickly. It is this large starchy part of the
plant that is harvested in the mature Agave plant to make tequila.

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disqard
Did anyone else notice the favicon (shown on one's browser tab) for this link?
IMO it beautifully depicts the subject of this post. I did a double-take
before realizing that it was an awl :)

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40four
Fun article! I love asparagus & tequila. Never would have imagined agave was
in the same family of plants!

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taejo
The monocots are a _huge_ clade, making up 23% of all angiosperm (flowering
plant) species. Asparagus and agave are related to each other just as much as
they are to grasses and bananas. It's like saying snakes and humans are
related to each other. Usually when we say two plants are related we mean
something like they're in the same family.

~~~
40four
I see what your saying, but the article says they ARE in the same family,
Asparagaceae.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agave](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agave)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asparagus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asparagus)

~~~
taejo
Ah, you're right. I missed the one mention of Asparagacae and was mislead by
the (now clearly irrelevant) discussion of monocots.

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gcb0
so, how does it taste?

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roach374
"Asparagus Death Fetish" was the name of my band in high school.

