A species of Cordyline. The thing growing out of it is the flower stem; you can keep it. You will probably find that the stem will branch after the flowering is finished. Old plants become much-branched, as in the pic below Resin Here is a link that might be useful:

I've got a lot of NuTone stuff in my house from that era. It is mostly bathroom exhaust fans and heater/exhaust fan/lights. One of them is a curious contraption that looked to me, earlier, to have a way to make it into an HVAC supply, possibly in a controlled manner . Now, I have some more info. Please forgive a little hijacking the thread Thanks for posting that link to the catalog, North Texan. I love that 50s ad stuff. I've got between 3 and 5 things out of that catalog in my house. First, some residual, nonworking intercom equipment. It looks like I have a 5000 series Hood-Fan in my kitchen with its dual squirrel cage blowers. Now that I know what the original lights looked like, I can take a close look at what the electrician/owner did when he hacked a 3' T12 luminaire in there. I've also got a "Fold-away" listed right under the 5000 series. The high wall mounted fan is probably a NuTone. I'll have to take a close look. The outside hood says NuTone and I feel it in my heart that it has a "patented no flutter shutter". I have, however, only a simple snap action switch ganged with a light switch in the same box. AMS, you want to sell your switch? I might be able to use it though I might need to pull some cable. Now, the bathroom heater-fan might be a close miss. My dampered outlet is definitely at the top rather than the side. Mine also appears to do more than this and the model number is different, longer. Maybe the longer number is an indication of added functionality. On the other hand, perhaps my was modified by the owner for top outlet. The bimetal spring might be what closes the (original) louvre. [Nutone Mod JA1C002[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/vintage-bath-vent-light-dsvw-vd~2390713) Darn, I want a NuTone Food Center, no more tangled cords, no more wasted space, no more heavy lifting.

in eastern MA, after the usual early spring greenup - it has been VERY dry the past few weeks. I am a little shocked to find a good amount of what I assume is fungus - see pic. I know sometimes hard to tell from pic, but in short, many but not all blades are completely orange. I seldom have fungus and certainly have NEVER had it this early. Plus - I usually equate fungus with too much moisture, but this is not the case the past few weeks. Any insight on what this is or what's going on? I have avoided fungus control in the past and try to rely on abundance of organic matter to let lawn do it's thing and fight bad fungi itself - usually with pretty good results, but this is surprising to me! Thanks!

Are there cockroaches in your area? We don't really have many in my area so I've never seen one or lived with them, but when I was looking for pics of mouse droppings just now, there are pics of cockroach droppings (I guess I never realized they left droppings) that look exactly like that. Not sure if they would hang out by a furnace vent or not. Oh, but I see maybe dog food is nearby?