who should we send to bolivia?

[Epiphyte]

let's all pool our pennies to send someone to bolivia. who here, other than yourself, would you chip in the most money to send? i'd chip in the most money to send this guy, but he'd have to promise not to overlook the achacha!

check out this meme i made from this video of a guy i follow on youtube...

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here's a meme i made from this reel of a guy i follow on instagram...

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here's i meme i made from this video of another guy i follow on youtube...

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i'm going to be a little embarrassed if it isn't an agave. anyone recognize it? it's massive! the gesneriad is a columnea, maybe columnea crassifolia.

this vox youtube video is so random but fascinating... what's inside this crater in madagascar? most of us might have more appreciation for the plants seen in the bonus footage video.

here's a guy in india that i follow on youtube. i love that he pays so much attention to the most insignificant plants. admittedly i don't watch all his videos, or even most of them. but i really respect that he's definitely not trying to cater to the masses. or something. but i can't say that i'd chip in much to send him to bolivia.

admittedly, if i had gone to bolivia 5 years ago i probably would have overlooked the achacha. and then i would have spent the rest of my life kicking myself. unfortunately it's impossible to learn from our future self about what's worth paying attention to. but we can, and we should, learn from each other about what's attention worthy.

in my tropical fruit thread i made the comparison to tug of war. how hard would you pull for your favorite plant group? while it certainly would be fun and informative for us all to play tug of war, sadly it's not very logistically possible. therefore, donations! we donate to this forum, for our favorite categories, and we learn from each other about which plant groups we should be paying the most attention to.

given that this forum is called "agaveville" we can reasonably guess that agaves will be the #1 category. but anyone care to wager what the #2 category would be? if so, how much would you be willing to bet? i'm guessing that aloes would be #2, but i wouldn't be surprised if #2 actually turned out to be cactus, so i wouldn't be willing to bet much. that's the kicker. we shouldn't have to be guessing. we should all just know. we should all know which plant group is the 2nd most important group to this community. this information should be in all our heads just in case any of us is lucky enough to be in bolivia or socotra or madagascar and we happen to see a plant that's really relevant to us.

i recently started creating a public food forest in the san fernando valley on the outskirts of my friend's community. today i planted a beschorneria yuccoides and a lemon guava seedling in the same hole. i'm hoping that the beschorneria will trade, via fungi, its spare water with the lemon guava for its surplus resources. did you know that plants trade with their neighbors? we should keep this in mind when planting. since i already have more than enough watering i need to do, i included at least one succulent plant with each of the fruit trees that i've planted so far in the food forest. not sure how much difference it will make. but if the fruit trees don't make it, at least there will be some interesting succulents. no agaves yet...

[Paul S]

i'm going to be a little embarrassed if it isn't an agave. anyone recognize it? it's massive!

It is most probably a furcraea, but no idea which.

Yuccas are popular on here, too - difficult to say which are second most popular. Personally, I'd like to se a 'Nolinaville' but that is unlikely to be very busy

[Meangreen94z]

Bolivia appears to have its own Furcraea; Furcraea boliviensis Ravenna. Picture documentation of it online appears next to zero, so you may have caught the botanical equivalent of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster in your video.

https://www.gbif.org/species/2769825

[Epiphyte]

It is most probably a furcraea, but no idea which.

hah, i thought of that briefly but for some reason the spines threw me off.

Yuccas are popular on here, too - difficult to say which are second most popular. Personally, I'd like to se a 'Nolinaville' but that is unlikely to be very busy

yeah i'd be surprised if yuccas were in the top 5. on a forum dedicated to epiphytic ant plants, i suggested that they broaden it to include all epiphytes, to no avail.

[Epiphyte]

Bolivia appears to have its own Furcraea; Furcraea boliviensis Ravenna. Picture documentation of it online appears next to zero, so you may have caught the botanical equivalent of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster in your video.

https://www.gbif.org/species/2769825

i should have mentioned somewhere in my post that the video is actually of columbia. unfortunately i haven't run across anyone in bolivia on youtube documenting plants in the wild, which is why we need to send someone!

[Gee.S]

i'm going to be a little embarrassed if it isn't an agave. anyone recognize it? it's massive!

It is most probably a furcraea, but no idea which.

Yuccas are popular on here, too - difficult to say which are second most popular. Personally, I'd like to se a 'Nolinaville' but that is unlikely to be very busy

Wait, I think I found it!

Nolinaville

[Paul S]

Looks kinda lonely.

[Gee.S]

Looks kinda lonely.

The life of a visionary.

[Paul S]

Looks kinda lonely.

The life of a visionary.

or possibly a raving loon.

[Gee.S]

Looks kinda lonely.

The life of a visionary.

or possibly a raving loon.

^ Point. I guess it's 'raving loon' until you start attracting a crowd.

[Fairview]

I got all excited. I really like Nolinas. Wish I could get them as big as the Dasylirion they sell here. All the Nolinas are puny little 1 gallon plants prematurely upszed into a 5 gallon container with an inflated price.

Have 2 N hibernica and 2 greenei in band pots. The hibernica is nice

[Gafoto]

I got all excited. I really like Nolinas. Wish I could get them as big as the Dasylirion they sell here. All the Nolinas are puny little 1 gallon plants prematurely upszed into a 5 gallon container with an inflated price.

Have 2 N hibernica and 2 greenei in band pots. The hibernica is nice

While you are right about expensive small plants in large pots I would recommend sizing nolina up quickly in general. They put out impressive roots straight to the bottom of the pot where they store their excess water and sugar, much like yucca.

[Meangreen94z]

Nolina nelsonii is popular here in Central Texas. The natives lindheimeriana and texana are also common in nurseries. I will add to my previous thread when I get a chance.

[Epiphyte]

merry christmas, here's a pic that i took at the huntington last year...

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is this a good one? looked like it might make a good host for epiphytes, if it was deskirted 1st of course.

[Paul S]

The life of a visionary.

or possibly a raving loon.

^ Point. I guess it's 'raving loon' until you start attracting a crowd.

Which is Ok up until they start chanting and throwing stones, like last time

I should maybe dust down my pictures folder and post more in there. I grow lots here, plus loads of pics from Mexico - some of them sp. nov.

[Paul S]

merry christmas, here's a pic that i took at the huntington last year...
is this a good one? looked like it might make a good host for epiphytes, if it was deskirted 1st of course.

Looks like a scruffy 'ol Yucca baccata? To me it would be all kinds of wrong to clean it up and stick epiphytes all over it. Plus you'd probably have to water the epiphytes and the yucca would end up sitting in the run off and most likely rot, being a fairly xeric species.

[Meangreen94z]

or possibly a raving loon.

^ Point. I guess it's 'raving loon' until you start attracting a crowd.

I should maybe dust down my pictures folder and post more in there. I grow lots here, plus loads of pics from Mexico - some of them sp. nov.

I agree. Most of mine are small. I’ll post what I can in a month or two

[Epiphyte]

merry christmas, here's a pic that i took at the huntington last year...
is this a good one? looked like it might make a good host for epiphytes, if it was deskirted 1st of course.

Looks like a scruffy 'ol Yucca baccata? To me it would be all kinds of wrong to clean it up and stick epiphytes all over it. Plus you'd probably have to water the epiphytes and the yucca would end up sitting in the run off and most likely rot, being a fairly xeric species.

label said yucca schidigera. they look the same to my untrained eye. for me it's all kinds of wrong for it to not be covered in epiphytes. what a waste. like having an empty room on noah's ark. when so many rainforests are bulldozed every day, this makes life on our planet a lot less dense. therefore, we have the moral and ethical and economic and every responsibility to make life a lot more dense whenever and wherever possible. nature has the same responsibility, which is why epiphytes exist in the 1st place. right now we're just seeing a snapshop of her epiphytic expansion efforts. in the absence of our interference, epiphytes would continue their rapid adaptive radiation and colonization from rainforests, to dry forests, and to deserts. so nothing is more in line with her very essence than to fill every possible niche with the greatest variety of life possible. but yeah you definitely wouldn't want to rot the yucca, so you'd have to give it really good drainage and adorn it with the most xeric epiphytes.

some yuccas sure are tolerant of wet feet. this guy was somehow thriving in the wettest and worst drained soil i've ever seen...

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yucca bright star? the owner was moving and having a sale. i bought the yucca, dug it up and put it in a pot with much better drainage. it promptly bloomed. i was nervous it was a death spike. i'm hoping it isn't monocarpic. is it? so far no new growth.

at the santa barbara orchid estate they had a mexican laelia growing on a common yucca...

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yucca guatemalensis? there were some signs of rot, so perhaps not the best combination so close to the coast. staghorns were starting to volunteer on the yucca...

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how many kinds of wrong is it to go on hiking and harvest wild yucca flowers to fry up with eggs? asking for a "friend".

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my "friend" said he liked the bitter taste, but there were just a few too many larvae. hah, what a wuss.

hmmm... i think that's all the yucca content i have?

just now i learned that ruscus is in the nolinoideae. not that i particularly care for ruscus. i unintentionally have one... ruscus aculeatus? my partner bought the plant to sell, but hasn't listed it yet. the new shoots can be eaten like asparagus? i do like asparagus.

the flower spikes on my ponytail palm look just like giant asparagus. i'm sure that if they were edible that we'd know by now? heck, most people don't even know about the achacha.

loran whitelock did a commendable job of making his ponytail palms more lively/lovely...

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nice assortment of tillandsias and encyclias.

a surprisingly good host for more xeric epiphytes is pachypodium lamerei...

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tillandsia myosura seeds i recently sowed plumping up nicely in the rain. last year's batch...

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the 1st batch, from a few years ago, is starting to bloom...

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i wouldn't be surprised if the seedlings managed to survive with only being watered once a month during summer. of course, the most beautiful thing is that the seedlings didn't survive equally well with such infrequent summer water. just like they didn't survive equally well with our winter rain. this variation is the source of their progress and adaptation to the climate here. it will be thrilling to discover in my lifetime some volunteers growing on branches that only receive winter rain. at the cemetery a couple blocks downwind from my house the workers will be surprised and annoyed about having to remove tillandsia volunteers from the tombstones. eh, i'm sure that the visitors would be happy to remove them. if anybody removes any tillandsias from my tombstone i'm going to haunt the heck out of them.

just remembered this epic short video of tillandsia recurvata functioning as sun screen for desert plants. ignore the cactus, lookit the epiphytes! oh yeah, i suppose i should be considerate of your plant preferences and share from the same guy his short video of Nolina parryi in its habitat. it's really happy? if so, why? is it because it's growing right next to a nitrogen fixing legume? or is it because it's growing right next to an arroyo? correlation or causation is really hard, but oso important. it's high on my list of things to write more about.

have you ever tried growing any of your nolinoideae right next to a nitrogen fixing plant? if not, you should. then you can lettuce know if you notice a difference.

back to the topic of epiphytes growing wherever they want, check out these staghorns colonizing a roof. here are some other stags colonizing ropes. in that case they didn't do so naturally, but ideally any rope left hanging outside should quickly be colonized by staghorns and other epiphytes.

i'm not sure why i make more effort to sow tillandsia myosura seeds rather than tillandsia recurvata seeds. am i betting on the wrong horse? i get the feeling that being able to store water is a more essential trait than being able to suck it from the air here in socal where the humidity is generally quite low.

back to the main topic of this thread...

1. being considerate of each other's plant preferences is a good thing
2. this depends on knowing each other's plant preferences
3. this depends on donating for our favorite plant categories

show us the money for the nolinoideae category! lettuce know how important it is for you for us to not ignore the nolinoideae!

[Paul S]

Gosh, wasn't expecting a State of the Union address.

I like ruscus - in my growing conditions they are invaluable for dry shade and I have most of the species growing here, including the uber-rare, outstandingly beautiful R. hyrcanus from Azerbaijan/Iran and the 'climbing ruscus' Semele androgyna. R. aculeatus is native to my region, I see some long established patches of it on one of my local walks. Interestingly both plants are male except for one corner of one which bears berries. Weird. Never tried eating them.

[Epiphyte]

did you try eating any ruscus yet?

how desirable is nolina beldingii? it's for sale.

[Meangreen94z]

did you try eating any ruscus yet?

how desirable is nolina beldingii? it's for sale.

Thank you for that. And he has another even higher elevation selection that survived 11°F.

[Paul S]

did you try eating any ruscus yet?

how desirable is nolina beldingii? it's for sale.

I think if world events take a turn for the worse and we are all having to eke some form of subsistence level lifestyle I might give it a go. Going to be like eating asparagus, I assume, but maybe stringier. Otherwise I'll leave the plants alone and head to the supermarket for food.

I grow Nolina beldingii. Once it gets going it seems fairly quick by nolina standard - the first 10 years are the slowest The leaves have an attractive withered tip that curls around like a shepherd's crook. Difficult to get a clear pic of mine as it is a bit crowded.

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[Meangreen94z]

did you try eating any ruscus yet?

how desirable is nolina beldingii? it's for sale.

I think if world events take a turn for the worse and we are all having to eke some form of subsistence level lifestyle I might give it a go. Going to be like eating asparagus, I assume, but maybe stringier. Otherwise I'll leave the plants alone and head to the supermarket for food.

I grow Nolina beldingii. Once it gets going it seems fairly quick by nolina standard - the first 10 years are the slowest The leaves have an attractive withered tip that curls around like a shepherd's crook. Difficult to get a clear pic of mine as it is a bit crowded.

IMG_20230912_141105.jpg

Did you grow that from seed? How old is it overall?

[Paul S]

I didn't but the guy I bought it from did grow it from seed. It must be around 25 years old.

[Epiphyte]

did you try eating any ruscus yet?

how desirable is nolina beldingii? it's for sale.

Thank you for that. And he has another even higher elevation selection that survived 11°F.

ooo, i managed to make myself useful! you're welcome. it can take quite a bit of cold, but what about heat?