I made this cross because I like compact blue agaves, and I like red buds that open into yellow flowers. Both parents have these traits, so it seemed likely I would get nice results in the offspring. But I wasn't sure what would happen with the timing of the flowering. A. colorata flowers in the spring, moving quickly from the emergence of the stalk in late winter to the opening of the first flowers a couple of months later. In contrast, A. parrasana has a two-stage flowering, with the stalk emerging in the fall of one year, followed by a long pause to wait out the cold of winter, and then resuming its journey the following spring (putting out its floral branches and then the actual flowers). As it happened, the offspring started to make a stalk in the fall (like parrasana), but then instead of going into pause mode, it kept going like A. colorata, starting to flower at the end of October. This led to something i had not expected - an agave flowering during the winter, when neither parent would ever do this. And it has been in flower since then, for over 6 months. Only now in May is it getting down to the last flowers (the photos above were taken a couple of weeks ago, just a week shy of 6 months after the first flower had opened). I think this has set the record for the longest period I have ever recorded between the beginning and completion of the flowering of a single agave's inflorescence. One other thing to note is the angle of the stalk in the upper photo. This is because it flowered next to a Trichocereus cactus that it rested against, and when the cactus was cut back due to stem issues, the agave tilted to the east - but it did not topple. The nodding tip of the inflorescence is no doubt due to A, colorata, whose stalk does not stay vertical; A. parrasana's stalk is always rigidly erect.
