2-799-161 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Great American Aloe in bloom, 1844. 'A very fine specimen of the Agave Americana, or Great American Aloe, in a state of blossoming... in the garden of the Rev. E. Duke, at Lake House, near Amesbury, Wilts. Such an event always attracts a good deal of attention...the plant being somewhat uncommon, and requiring many years in this climate - from 70 to 100 - to enable it to flower, after which it dies. The flower stem...shot upward with astonishing rapidity, sometimes amounting to a growth of six inches in twenty-four hours. Thirty-six lateral branches...spring from the central stem, much after the fashion of a candelabrum. These branches are laden at their extremities with a profusion of flower buds, averaging, as we believe, 150 in a bunch. Our engraving shows the plant, with a temporary staircase, by which visitors may ascend, the more closely to inspect the flowers'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol V.