The shapely, very beautiful Agave ferdinandi-regis (a.k.a King agave) is closely allied to the other 'royal' agave, namely the beautiful Agave victoria-reginae and often confused with it, but instead of silver colored margins has dark reddish brown edges. This small slow-growing agave is also known as Agave victoriae-reginae var. laxior or Agave victoriae-regina var. nickelsii, it is now considered by some authors (lumpers) only a variant of Agave victoria-reginae and fully synonymized with it, but these two plants looks quite distinct, there does not appear to be any 'transition' forms in nature, which one would expect to see if these two were really the same. Also this plant grows to nearly twice the size of the other.
