Grow, bloom, die: The curious case of Agave americana

The nine-metre (and growing) flowering stalk. Image: Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum.

Meet Michigan's octogenarian agave – a green giant with a death wish. Visitors have been pouring into the University of Michigan's Matthaei Botanical Gardens to catch a glimpse of the rare plant, which was first acquired by the institution all the way back in 1934.

For the first time in 80 years, the nine-metre (27 foot) agave (Agave americana) has begun to bloom. Its flowering stalk is growing an impressive 15.24cm (6 inches) per day – so fast that staff had to remove a pane of glass from the ceiling to make room for its growth spurt.

It might be putting on a show now, but for monocarpic species like the American agave, flowering is fatal. "The agave should bloom ... for several weeks," says the Matthaei Botanical Gardens website. "After that, the parent plant will die, but not before leaving behind some genetically identical 'pups'."

In the wild, agave plants flower at the age of between 10 and 25 years (much younger than this late bloomer), but according to the botanical garden's manager Mike Palmer, it's rare for one to bloom indoors at all ... so this is a big treat.

"[Visitors have] asked me for years, 'when is it going to bloom?' And I would always say, 'I don't know'," he says. "I actually noticed [on Thursday] that it's starting to show some signs of changes. You can see some wrinkles, sort of like what we get as we age."

Blooms begin to open on the incredibly fast-growing flowering stalk. Image: Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum.

The fragrance produced by the plant's yellow flowers has been compared to burnt toast and overcooked rice. Image: Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum.

A pane of glass from the ceiling was removed to allow the flowering stalk to grow. Image: Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum.