No Visitors To See Tenerife Plant That Blooms Once Every 30 Years

This huge 20-foot high agave plant has bloomed for the first time in 30 years at exactly the time there is no-one to see it, as the botanical park in Tenerife where it is based is locked down and closed to visitors.

Even worse, now that it has bloomed, the Agave cacozela plant, which belongs to the Caribbean agave (Agave caribaea) group of plants, is set to die, meaning visitors to the Botanical Garden that raised it for three decades will have to wait another 30 years for a new one to be raised.

The plant, in the resort of Puerto de la Cruz in Tenerife located in the Spanish Canary Islands, only blooms once in its life with an impressive golden flower that extends six metres (19.7 feet) into the air. The plant’s width is four metres (13 feet).

The giant Caribbean agave was planted in the Botanical Garden towards the end of the 1980s.

It requires lots of sunlight and very little water therefore it has perfectly adapted to life in the sunny Canary Islands.

At the end of its 20-day bloom, the flower dies and leaves behind a lot of seeds, according to local media.

The garden has been closed due to the COVID-19 lockdown in Spain, however head gardener Alfredo Reyes believes the plant’s bloom has nothing to do with the absence of people.

He told local media: “We do not believe the bloom has anything to do with the lockdown or climate change. After 30 years of waiting, it was simply time.”