518 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. [1885. 



obtained from the sap of the Agave Americana, gathered in the cavity 

 made in the heart of the plant by the removal of the young central 

 leaves. 



As a textile plant Sotol is worthless. 



Noliua Texana, Watson. 



Abundant on all the foot-hills of Western Texas. Used by Mexicans 

 to thatch their huts, or jacals, and make brooms. 



AMARYLLID ACEiE . 



Agave heteracantha, Ziicc. (Lechuguilla.) 



This notorious j)lant begins west of Devil's Eiver and infests most of 

 the limestone highlands of Southwestern Texas, often covering the 

 ground in such dense patches as to make it impassable for man or beast. 

 It is pre-eminently the textile plant of ^N^orthern Mexico. 



It blossoms when three or four years old and then dies. Its reproduc- 

 tion from root-stock and seed is easy and rapid. Each plant consists oi 

 a cluster of about a dozen leaves armed on the edges with hooked 

 prickles and tipped with a stift", black spine. They vary in length from 

 1 to 2 feet and in width from 1 to 2 inches, and yield a fiber of an aver- 

 age length of 15 inches, which is considered the toughest and most dura- 

 ble of any produced in Mexico. With it are made a-ll the ropes (not 

 hair) and most of the bags, mats, &c., used in the Republic. The de- 

 fects of the Lechugiiilla fiber are its coarseness and shortness. It is 

 obtained as follows : The leaves, trimmed and separated, are crushed 

 between rollers which squeeze out a large amount of glutinous, soapy, 

 connective pith ; they are then exi^osed to the sun for half a day or more, 

 when the fibers are easily separated by hand or still better by machin- 

 ery which, at the same time, removes the remaining i)ith. The Mex- 

 icans, mostly unprovided with machinery, still scrape the green leaves 

 with knives ; the shreds and shavings thus obtained are left to dry a 

 few hours upon the ground, then they are thoroughly washed to rid 

 them of all the mucilaginous pith, and finally the fibers are picked or 

 combed apart. 



Lechuguilla is the most important of the soap or " amole" plants of 

 Southwestern Texas and Northern Mexico. In the process described 

 above to extract the fiber, the parenchyma or pith squeezed out, con- 

 stitutes about 40 per cent, of the green leaf; when dried it is a white- 

 yellowish, mucilaginous powder which possesses remarkable cleansing 

 properties, principally due to the presence of saponin. Its composition 

 is very probably analogous to that of the root of Yucca haccata, alreadj'^ 

 noticed. Rubbed with water, it foams and lathers, answering the pur- 

 pose of good soap without, owing to its freedom from alkali, its dis- 

 advantages. It imparts a smooth and satiny appearance to the skin, 

 and is used successfully in removing stains from the most delicate fab- 

 rics. It tends" rather to set than to displace colors, and articles likely 



