WHAT is this insane plant?

[avamac]

Whilst walking pug, I pass the weird perennial/tree/bulb garden that, bizarrely, recently replaced another established weird perennial garden (Portland being weird plant ground central)....The new owners are trying to flip the house for 900K or so before the black plastic underneath it all begins to show...or the old plants break through.





It's one enormous mother--8 or 10 feet tall, with a billion lilac thimble-shaped outfacing flowers, beloved of bumble bees. The scaly trunk is as big as my arm. It's been in bloom for a couple of months.

 

[Laura]

I know a lot of plants, but that one is WEIRD! The triangular leaves don't seem to go with the rest of the plant. Maybe Amanda or Jenn will recognize it...

Laura

 

[Elsewhere]

I think it's two plants.
One plant with the trunk and the long pointy leaves that you see mostly at the bottom, but can also be seen poking out through the leaves and flowers of the second plant that's suffocating it.

That's my guess, anyway! ;)

 

[Ookoo]

I think Kristine is right.

It looks like some sort of yucca at the base, with a parasitic plant growing over it.

Pretty cool, actually!

 

[avamac]

No, it's really ONE plant....there's the scaly stem....droopy grayish leaves, very coarse and about a foot long, and the rest of the enormity is a giant flower umbrel. The fuffy looking stuff is zillions of stems of tiny flowers, the fresh ones opening at the end. Sorry my pix could be better, but the pug was not into tedious halt for picture taking.

 

[BagDiva]

Its a Yukka plant,

it was very popular here, c1970s.....and it looks like it has been attacked by a sweet william or lobelia type plant, that covers everything in it path like a rash....
its obviously has been left to its own devices and looks to be a 20-30 yr old....the old leaves dry out and wilt down, a syou can see there, and then it should be pruned off....

hth

 

[dorotheascloset]

Hmmmm, I've never seen a yucca with a stem like that. The plant in front of it looks like a yucca though, serrated leaves, ground level.

The stem and base leaves remind me of a plant we use as a houseplant called a "Corn Plant" (Dracaeana, which isnt corn at all, but has a woody thick stem and spiked corn-leaf shaped leaves). That family of plants is large and it appears many only bloom every several years.....I wonder if this is related?

Ang

 

[BagDiva]

yucca doesnt have serrated edges, well not here anyhow, they;ll be variagted versions of course...but l had several in my front garden....and they were like these..

 

[ivycompany]

Nope, those are all over here in central CA, and I've always wondered what they are too. It's not a succulent of any kind, those pointy leaves are soft. They look like something Dr Seuss invented! There are some by my daughter's school, and a grove of them near a friend's house. The woody stem/trunks can get weirdly curvy, too. I want to find out what they are because I want to plant some on our land.