By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Is this beauty a tetraploid mutation of a Manfreda variegata?  Or is it a intergeneric cross between a M. variegata and an Agave celsii?  Or, because some botanists have combined Manfreda and Agave, does that make 'Macho Mocha' an interspecific Agave hybrid? 

Yucca Do Nursery, who introduced the plant, exhibiting their usual sense of humor, cut to the chase and gave it their own name.  They called it a Mangave.  And until the botanists finally agree on its classification, that's what many growers now call it, too.

Mangrave 'Macho Mocha' grows in rosettes three to six feet wide.  Its fleshy gray-green leaves are densely spotted with brownish-purple blotches.  Markings will be more pronounced in sun.

Established clumps will flower in late spring.  They flower in the same way agaves do -- a tall flower spike rising from the middle and towering above the rosette.  But mangaves don't die after bloom like agaves do, fortunately.

'Macho Mocha' is very hardy--it's said to survive temperatures down to 9 degrees F--and does well in Las Vegas, where this recent photo was taken.  It was in a garden Norm Schillling of the Schilling Horticultural Group designed. 

If you don't find 'Macho Mocha' at your local nursery, you can mail order from Yucca Do  or Plant Delights.