Ariz.

United States

Origin: Native

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Type of Residency: Year-round

Global Range: Endemic to a narrow range in Arizona (Arizona ranking form 1/99).

Plants acaulescent, freely suckering; rosettes solitary to cespitose, 9–10 × 9–10 dm, open. Leaves erect or erect-ascending, 50–63(–73) × 7.5–9 cm; blade glaucous-gray to -bluish, cross-zoned, lanceolate or oblanceolate, rigid, adaxially concave, abaxially convex; margins straight or repand, armed, teeth single, well defined, 3.5–5 mm, 1–3 cm apart, interstitial teeth (3–)6–12, mostly along distal 2/3 of margins; apex conspicuously incurved, spine brownish gray, slender, 2.8–3.5(–4.9) cm. Scape 4.5–6 m. Inflorescences broadly paniculate, not bulbiferous, open; bracts persistent, triangular, 1–5.5 cm; lateral branches 12–17, horizontal, comprising distal 3/5–5/8 of inflorescence, longer than 10 cm. Flowers 14–20 per cluster, erect, 4.7–6.7(–7) cm; perianth cream, tinged with light green, tube not shallow, campanulate, 11–16 × 11–16 mm, limb lobes persistent and often leathery during and after anthesis, spreading, unequal, 9–18 mm, apex flushed with maroon; stamens long-exserted; filaments inserted at 1 level ca. mid perianth tube, erect, yellow, 3–5.3 cm, apex flushed with maroon; anthers yellow, 11–20 mm; ovary 2.1–2.9 cm, neck slightly constricted, 1–3.5 mm. Capsules not seen. Seeds unknown.

Gravelly places with desert scrub, rarely in chaparral or pinyon-juniper woodlands; of conservation concern; 700--1600m.

Comments: Usually found atop high benches, which are often south- or southwest-facing, or on open hilly slopes, which can be more gentle and are sometimes northeast-facing. Sites often overlook major drainage systems and perennial streams. Soils are gravelly or cobbly, deep, and well-drained; underlying substrate is often conglomerate, sometimes limestone. Plant community is usually Sonoran desert scrub, occasionally Interior Chaparral, Great Basin Conifer (pinyon-juniper) Woodland, or juniper-grassland. Associated species include Carnegiea gigantea, Prosopis sp., Juniperus sp., Gutierrezia sp., Fouqueria splendeus, Calliandra eriophylla, Menodora scabra, Echinocereus fasciculatus var. fasciculatus, Echinocereus fasciculatus var. bonkerae, Erodium cicutarium, and occasionally Rhus trilobata, Opuntia engelmannii, Canotia holacantha, Yucca baccata, and Psilostrophe sp. Often found in or near archaeological features of the Mogollon, Salado, and Hohokam cultures, including multi-room foundations, and also above check dams and linear alignments. 670 - 1600 m.

Flowering early summer.

United States

Rounded National Status Rank: N2 - Imperiled

Rounded Global Status Rank: G2 - Imperiled

Reasons: Known from approximately 70 plants in the Tonto Basin in Gila County, Arizona. No fertile seed is produced. (Center for Plant Conservation 1991 Accession Proposal, T. Ecker, 1 Dec 1990)

Global Short Term Trend: Decline of 10-30%

Comments: Tuzigoot population will probably die off (Arizona ranking form 1/99).

Agave delamateri is known only from about 90 individual clones and always in association with Mogollon or Salado settlement features. The plant is probably a cultivar derived from A. palmeri or a closely related taxon by pre-Columbian people. Agave delamateri hybridizes with A. chrysantha, acting as a pollen donor.

Comments: Name Agave delamateri accepted in Kartesz 1999 'Synthesis'; May be the "Agave sp. nov./ined." of Federal Register, Jan. 1998 (unclear if intent was for name Agave delamateri" or A. "tontobasiensis"; both names were in informal circulation but unpubished at that time).