Some time back we asked our three readers to help us identify a plant that sprouted from some cacti fronds in a friend's backyard.
They obliged and informed us it was a century plant, a plant which, according to its name, sprouts only every 100 years. We realize the name might be generic and that the plant will bloom again some future date before the 100 years pass, by which time we know we probably won't be around.
But something unusual happened to this plant after it sprouted and produced seeds from its blooms. My friend noticed that a perfectly round hole had been bored by something, an animal perhaps, at about the middle from the base to the top. The hole does not go all the way through the plant's trunk, but rather stops about halfway through.
So we're back to the questions again. Does anyone out there know what it could possibly have been that bored this hole in the trunk of this century plant. There doesn't seem to be a animal or bird living in it, and the trunk has been propped up by ropes so it won't fall. Is this something normal to these plants? And is the animal, bird or insect that did it living there?If you have some knowledge on the subject, please inform us because we're (pardon the pun) stumped. My fried has saved the seeds that came from the blooms above in hopes that he can plant them at a later date and grow one.
3 comments:
The asian hornet.
The woody wood peckers do those holes to get the pulp, or make a home.
A Golden-fronted Woodpecker made that hole, likely last spring and probably used it as a nesting site unless something disturbed it before it was completed and it abandoned the nest. This is the most common of the woodpeckers in our area. If a woodpecker isn't using it other cavity nesting birds like wrens and titmice and even parrots and parakeets may move in next spring or a Screech Owl may use it as a day roost any time. A clue that parrots or parakeets are using the place as a nest is that that nice round entrance hole will often be enlarged and it will be irregular and ragged in shape. Parrots are not the squared away carpenters that woodpeckers (carpinteros) are.
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