Great banding on this Agave sobria

[mcvansoest]

I have to say that the more that I look at the Agaves that I have in the ground, or in pots in a lot of sun, the more I see that have some form of banding...

For example here is the A. angustifolia:

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Sorry for the somewhat crappy pictures, not great at taking pics with my cellphone and since I went swimming with my iPhone in my pocket last summer I also have the new one in a water proof case which has affected the picture quality a bit.

Obviously this banding is not as distinct or obvious as that on the siberia, but I'd still say it is pretty clear banding.

I have some more pictures of examples to post over lunch, but it would appear to give some weight to the argument: bright sun, heat and an 'episodic' watering regime can get it done even if a plant is not predisposed to it. Given that I have no good sense as to the soil composition it is hard to put that down as a big factor at the moment, though it may well play into things.

[mcvansoest]

Here are some more banded examples:

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A. americana ssp. protoamericana

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A. isthmensis

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A. parryi var. truncata

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A. salmiana var. crassispina

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A. sobria (pseudogigantensis)

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A. sobria ssp. frailensis

And I think you can even see some banding on this one which came to me as A. ghiesbreghtii:

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Nothing quite as spectacular as on that sobria in the OP, but still on just about all of these the banding is pretty readily observable. Some of these plants are or were getting quite some shade, but they were all subjected to the same watering regime. All except the A. sobria (pseudogigantensis) have been in the ground for at least a couple of years, the sobria (pseudogigantensis) was planted yesterday and lived under the 50% shade cloth of my staging area for at least a couple of years.

[Stone Jaguar]

If you still have it, I would also add the ‘Blue Emperor’ you posted an image of last year. My plant replicated yours starting in early January after arriving from SoCal nursery with concolor leaves last summer. In a pot, evenly moist, very bright all day but no direct sun at all, mostly mineral substrate light on N, heavy on CA and Mg. ‘Burnt Burgundy’ plants also manifesting early evidence of banding...’Blue Ember’ not.

Note that this plant showed no evidence of banding six weeks ago, so started to generate these faint markings in the dead of winter, while we were still getting rain. It arrived in early August, bare-root. Limitations of phone color saturation on phone + Cleary’s spray residue on the leaves mutes the blue evident in person.

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