Something unusual for the 3rd Sunday of the month

After two weeks of favourites I thought I’d showcase something unusual for the lovely ‘Hey Jude‘ today. Returning to Portugal again but it isn’t very Portuguese! In fact it is a native of Mexico although apparently they have naturalised in Madeira and the Algarve. It is an agave but an unusual one because of its amazing curved stem.

It took me ages to determine exactly what it was. I first came across it in March last year but was only two weeks ago I got round to identifying Agave attenuata! It is commonly known as Foxtail Agave because of that stem, but I certainly didn’t think foxtail when I first saw it. It is enormous, about 4ft in length. Unsurprisingly given the size they do not bloom frequently, although more often than the Agave americana which takes 10 years to flower. The Agave amercana is even larger, more like a tree than a flower stem. We saw this one on one of our Algarvian hill strolls.