Agave virginica
Lee Poulsen (Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:46:42 PDT)

But it would be nice to have some kind of term to refer to the type of
plants where the specific individual plant that produced a flower, even
if it has formed a clump, will no longer form any more flowers and is
going to die away. I've had to explain this several times to different
non-botanical friends who planted bananas and expected the same plant
they planted to keep on producing bunches of bananas year after year
just like all their "other fruit trees". I tell them that they need to
leave some of the "baby plants" or "suckers" that form alongside the
main plant, because they'll be the ones to produce fruit in subsequent
years, ad infinitum.

It's also useful to me when I'm contemplating purchasing a plant I
haven't grown before, so that I know to save seeds or leave the offsets
to grow so that I can continue to enjoy it after the original plant I
planted dies away.

Also, clearly it shouldn't be referred to as an annual or biennial
because the time from seed to flower and fruit isn't defined by the
specific number of seasons it has been growing.

Aren't there a few palms and most bamboos that also have this
characteristic of dying after they flower and fruit? And according to
_Charlotte's Web_, spiders have this characteristic, too. ;-)

--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USDA Zone 10a

Tony Avent wrote:

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--Lee Poulsen Pasadena, California, USDA Zone 10a