Century plants reach for the sky
....By Bill Whitaker
Drought conditions may have local flowers down and out, but
some hardy century plants have risen to the occasion.
You might even say they're giving it their all, because after
these long-lived plants finally bloom, they go to pot and die.
But before they do, they garner stares aplenty.
Take, for example, the spiky-looking century plant at 1608 Franklin,
right across the street from Betty Brooker's home. Several weeks
ago, a huge, solid shaft appeared from the plant's center and,
in an amazingly short period of time, grew 15 feet tall.
Now it has a dozen or so yellow-green blooms, all good-sized and
busy with bees. Needless to say, it's the talk of the neighborhood.
Folks who didn't know better might well assume they'd been invaded
by triffids.
"We've been here 40 years, right at it, and I've never seen
that plant bloom," Betty said of neighbor Jerry Poling's
century plant yesterday afternoon. "That plant's been there
all that time, but it's never done anything even close to this."
Same story at Les and Ruth Talbert's home at 1465 Rosewood in
northwest Abilene. Shortly after the record snowfall we had in
April, the century plant on the southwest side of their house
sprouted a "trunk" about 4 inches or so in diameter.
"We hardly noticed it in the past," explained Ruth Talbert,
a retired third-grade teacher at Jane Long Elementary. "I
just put a little water on it occasionally. It's very hardy."
Now it, too, is standing solid at about 15 feet - taller than
the Talberts' house.
"Of course, I thought all the wind we've had would blow it
over," Les said, "but it's really pretty sturdy."
Dubbed "stately sentinel of the Chihuahuan desert" by
Texas naturalists Campbell and Lynn Loughmiller, the plant is
called a century plant because it takes so long to blossom. Under
the best conditions, the plant sends forth a green, wood-hard
stalk and yellow flowers after 15 years.
However, beyond the Chisos Mountains and other desert climes,
the time required may be longer.
When it begins growing, things happen fast. The stalk can grow
at a rate of 18 inches a day.
Birds, bees and ants relish the tubular yellow flowers for their
nectar, but another species - significantly larger - relishes
unique by-products made from the sap. You see, the sap is used
in Mexico to make intoxicating beverages such as mescal, pulque
and tequila.
Down-side of this story: After taking years, maybe even decades,
to decide to reach for the sky and then go blooming crazy, the
century plant often turns black and dies. However, baby century
plants around the rim of the dying plant begin the whole cycle
over again.
In fact, Jerry Poling has been graciously encouraging friends
to come by and dig up the baby century plants near the bigger
plant's rim.
Betty Brooker says she might get one, though she and I both agreed
we might have just as much a chance of seeing that baby century
plant walk, talk and pay taxes in 15 years. There's no guarantee
on just when it might actually bloom, if at all.
As for the 15-foot shaft and blooms on its upper half outside
Jerry's home, they're brushing up against telephone lines.
The proud century plant at the Talberts' home has every right
to be so: Les, 75, a longtime band director in our public schools,
tells me his plant comes from a century plant that flourished
on his granddad's farm in China Spring, near Waco.
One of its seedlings was planted on Les' father's place in Happy
up in the Panhandle. Sometime back in the 1970s or '80s, Les was
given one of the offspring by his dad and planted it in his yard.
This year it bloomed for the first time.
Sounds like a good excuse for a family reunion to me.
With 15 blooms way high up, people are constantly stopping by.
It's a great show and, for my money, far more satisfying than
that silly comet that flew over West Texas a few months ago. But
later this summer, when the century plants in our town finally
die, there won't be much Jerry or the Talberts can do for an encore
but wait.
And for quite a spell.
Now you can e-mail Bill Whitaker at WTWARN@aol.com.
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1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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