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Nursery - Products List - Succulent - Agave vilmoriniana
 
Agave vilmoriniana - Octopus Agave
Habit and Cultural Information
 
Category : Succulent
Family : Agavaceae (Agaves)
Origin : Mexico (North America)
Flower Color : Green Blue
Bloomtime : Infrequent
Evergreen : Yes
Tolerates Drought : Yes
Resistant to Deer Predation : Yes
Height : 3-4 feet
Width : 3-4 feet
Exposure : Full Sun
Irrigation Req. : Low Water Needs
 
 
Agave vilmoriniana (Octopus Agave) - A very unusual looking succulent with narrow green leaves that twist back towards the ground, making it look like a 4 feet tall and wide spider or octopus. Arching deeply furrowed leaves are unarmed, making this Agave a relatively safe plant for walkway areas or container growing. It should be noted the leaf margins, while unarmed to the eye can have small serrations and be fairly sharp. Plant in full sun. Tolerates drought and cold temperatures to 24 ° F. As with other Agave the main plant dies after flowering but this plant produces no suckers to replace itself. It does produce many new "plantlets" (or bulbils) within the inflorescence that can perpetuate the plant within the garden. Seems to flower within 7 to 10 years from plants grown from these plantlets. This agave was named in honor of M. Maurice Vilmorin, whose garden at Barres (now the Arboretum des Barres) was where Alwin Berger, the author of the first monograph on Agave, first saw this plant. Its natural habitat is cliff sides between 2,000 and 5,500 feet in the Mexican states of Sonora, Durango, Jalisco and Aquascalientes.