Giant Agaves In Cameron Highlands

During the March holidays 2012 my family and I went up to Cameron Highlands and saw these giant agaves growing by the roadside along the main road in Brinchang Town. Out of these four giants, two of them were flowering and one of them had the mother plant deteriorating quite badly. I suspect these giants may be more than fifty years old.

A flowering Agave plant in the neighborhood.

I had been observing this plant from a far for almost a couple years now. Off and on when I travel in the bus that took this route, I would turn my head at the window seat,  and my gaze would fall on this huge plant that seemed to be significantly towering over all the other plants that the gardener grew round it. A couple of months ago I noticed a huge spike that grew .... and slowly it did grow huge almost 4 stories high. It was after one of my tea time with dear husband around the neighborhood  that I finally got a chance to inch close up on this plant. It's pretty amazing ..... many of my gardening  friends couldn't help but commented on this beauty when I shared the photos here at a social networking site :-)

According to a friend the ID is Agave atrovirens . It may have taken 40 years for the plant to grow this size big. After flowering, the mother plant will produce hundreds of offsets and then it will slowly die off. Such is the cycle in nature to propagate the plant.

Agaves

When I first came across these plants they were only palm size. After growing in the CG for about a year they are now larger than palm size ....LOL Pot size to be exact and if they are planted into the ground they can grow larger than human size.
Agaves are desert plants which can take hot and cold temperatures but not frost. Over here they are perpetually under  hot  temperatures and hence they grow pretty well and fast too.