botanyshitposts:

dude no like titanums are like….another level of plant tho. like literally, they can live for 30, 40, 50+ years, blooming every decade. there’s a phenomenon ive noticed with them of individuals being dutifully cared for during that time by university greenhouse/public conservatory staff and they almost all get named. there are only roughly 300 blooms per year in the united states, and when they bloom its An Event for the location that cares for them, bringing in a ton of new visitors who aren’t that acquainted with plants for the occasion. they are more easily attached to as important creatures instead of a plant on the same level as a common houseplant, and become a fixture and an attraction in the places that tend to them. i would grieve for it, too. that’s a real loss. there are some kinds of plants that are very different in that way. 

i remember when my community greenhouse lost our century plant, a type of giant succulent that blooms once every 70-100 years right before it dies. it sends up an 11+ foot stalk with hundreds of flowers, which uses up it’s final energy reserves that it’s been building its entire life. when we lost ours it was incredible, obviously, because the stalk can go up in as little as three days- but i came in to water the greenhouses one morning and the landscaping crew had removed it’s body, leaving a gaping space in the desert bed. it had been there the entire time the greenhouse had been open. 

i turned around to water the succulents on the tables behind me, and found that the landscaping crew had saved a single one of it’s pups (an asexual offspring). it was maybe three-five inches tall, about a year old, and was sitting in a very tiny pot befitting of it’s size. they had moved the species marker from it’s mother’s space in the bed to the pot. i cried.