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National Geographic : 1950 Oct
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Climax of 150 Years of Growth-Puya's Huge Flower Head No man living remembered when Puya raimondii was born, for the event took place a century and a half ago. No one could have seen it bloom before, for it does so but once in a lifetime. No one would see it flower again, for blossoming signals its death. Largest of all bromeliads is P. rai mondii, the discovery of Antonio Rai mondi, an Italian botanist. A giant among the herbs, it dwarfs in age even the largest of Mexico's agaves, popu larly called century plants. Author Foster found this solitary specimen, the only one of its kind within 300 miles, on Bolivia's Mount Huakaqui, which to Indians means Going to Cry Mountain. He could only guess how it grew so far from its parent colony. At fruiting time the flower head rose swiftly out of the trunk (page 469). Eight feet in circumference, it easily supported a man. It bore more than 8,000 flowers on branches like the one shown below. Puya's tiny seeds number millions, but any one of them has less than a chance in a million of taking root in the stony mountainside and surviving the Andes' frost, snow, wind, and drought. National Geographic Society KIodachronmes by M\ulford H.Foster
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