6o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the natives b.ave from time immemorial cultivated a number of 

 agaves, until now it is difficult for botanists to decide whether 

 some of them are distinct species or only cultivated varieties. 



One of the native species, known as Agave rigida, is a rather 

 small plant, having leaves from two to four feet long, and - as 

 many inches wide. These are armed on the edges with dark- 

 brown spiny teeth, and are terminated by a stout, reddish-brown 

 spine. This seems to be the plant called clielem by the natives 

 of Yucatan, and is the one from which the cultivated varieties 

 are supposed to have originated. These varieties, collectively 

 known as henequen or jenequen, are separately distinguished as 

 the " yaxci, furnishing the best quality, and the sacci, with the 

 largest quantity of fiber ; cliucumci, larger than the last, produces 

 coarse fiber ; and babci has finer fiber, but in smaller quantity." 



Of the varieties mentioned above, only two need be consid- 

 ered the sacci and the yaxci. The former, known as Agave 

 rigida, variety longifolia, is distinguished from the native plant 

 by having much longer, spiny leaves, from four to six feet in 

 length, and slightly different flowers. It is extensively cultivated 

 in Yucatan, and, as already stated, yields the most fiber. The 

 other variety, the yaxci, botanically dignified by the title Agave 

 rigida, variety sisalana, or sometimes even elevated to the rank 

 of a species, is one of the most valuable of the fiber-producing 

 agaves. 



The leaves are of a dull-green color, four to six feet long, as 

 many inches wide, and terminated by a stout, dark spine. The 

 margins are commonly described as smooth, as they are without 

 teeth, but in all the plants examined by the writer the leaves 

 were slightly rough on the edges, and in many of the young 

 plants some of the leaves had well-developed teeth. A full-grown 

 plant presents a rather striking appearance, bristling all over 

 with the long, spiny-tipped leaves, thickly radiating from the 

 short cylindrical trunk, which is crowned by a sharp, slender, 

 cone-like bud. Indeed, a large plant makes one think of a gigantic 

 sea-urchin. The leaves as they unfold from the bud slowly as- 

 sume a horizontal position, but remain rigid and straight, never 

 curving downward, as they do in the century plant. 



As has been said above, when the plant arrives at maturity, 

 and has a sufficient store of nourishment, it sends up its flower- 

 stem, known to cultivators as the " mast " or " pole." This is 

 from twenty to twenty-five feet high, and about six inches in 

 diameter near the base. On the upper two thirds branches are 

 developed, converting the pole into a huge panicle, covered with 

 innumerable greenish-yellow flowers. A peculiarity of the sisal 

 plant is that it seldom or never sets a seed. The flowers fall, car- 

 rying the ovary with them, then on the ends of the branches 



