ALOE AND SISAL PI I; 



AGAVE 



History 



hnimniond and Prain, the most recent authors on the Indian Agaves, 

 tin: various botanical opinions that have been advanced, give a 

 complete history of the useful species, and also furnish a record of publi- 

 cit ions so exhaustive as to render further treatment in this work almost 

 undesirable. The citation of publications below is intended therefore to 

 amplify the enumeration given by these authors in so far as works, mainly 

 of practical and commercial interest, are concerned. 



Distribution. The species of Af/are are indigenous to tropical South Habitat. 

 America, Mexico and the Southern States of North America By cultiva- 

 tion (chiefly during the 16th to 18th centuries) the forms of industrial and 

 horticultural interest have been distributed throughout the greater part of 

 the warm temperate and tropical regions of the globe. Several have even 

 become acclimatised (or have run wild) in South Europe, Africa, India, 

 the West Indies and some portions of the American Continent where they 

 are believed not to have been indigenous. While completely naturalised 

 in the warmer tracts of India, one of the species has become equally at 

 home on the hills up to an altitude of 6,000 feet, provided the soil be dry 

 and rocky, and the atmosphere not too moist. They are best known 

 under the following names American Aloe, Century Plant, Carata, Pita, 

 Sisal Hemp, White Rope Fibre, and the like. 



History. One of the earliest detailed accounts of the economic properties Earliest 

 of those plants was that given by Gomara (Hist. Qen. de las Indias, 1554, 334). Account. 

 Writing of the Spanish West Indies including Mexico, he speaks of a plant known 

 to the Natives as metl or maguey (= tree of wonders) and to the Spaniards as 

 cordon (the thistle). He gives a statement of its use for textile purposes, and 

 explains the name fil-y-agulla as referring to the use of the spine as a needle 

 and the fibre as thread. Fragosus (Hist. Med. Ind., 1600, 88) mentions the 

 wine obtained from the plant (paclire the pulque of later writers). Dodonseus 

 (Purgantium, 1574, 115) publishes a plate borrowed from Clusius who had it 

 prepared from a plant seen by him near Valentia (Rar. Stirp. Hist. Hisp. 

 Oba., 1576, 442). The same plate did duty in some form with later writers 

 for the next two hundred years, though it usually appeared side by side with 

 the plate of Camerarius (Hort. Med., 1588, 10-11, t. v.). In 1727 Trew 

 published an excellent monograph on the subject with a careful drawing 

 of the flower. As regards India the first authentic reference would appear 

 to be that of Roxburgh (Oba. on Substitutes for Hemp and Flax, 1801). In 

 The Journal of the Society of Arts (1804, xxii.) he speaks of Agave as wild and 

 beautiful, and in his Hortus Bengalensi* (1814, 25) he mentions three species, 

 i. Can tain. A. im >,i,i. and -i. /H /*. The first he tells us had been in- 

 troduced into the Royal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, before 1794 (from India, 

 locality not stated), and further he affirms that it possessed a Sanskrit name 

 kantala ; the second he speaks of as a native of America ; and the third he says 

 had been procured from Kew but turned out to bo the plant called " Yucca 

 Superba " of the Calcutta Gardens a plant which had been procured direct from 

 America in 1799. Subsequently Roxburgh (Fl. Ind., ii., 167) was induced to think 

 it wild. But neither the name kantala (nor any other) has been accepted 

 by other writers as being Sanskrit. Roxburgh doubtless obtained it from 

 Sir W. Jones (As. Res., iv., 230). It is possibly a gloss on katevala, Rheede's 

 name for the medicinal aloe. The names that exist are mostly descriptive 

 or comparative and thus modern, for example, banskeora (= the bamboo 

 i'n titin nut,) orbara kanvar (= the large aloe). From Vascoda Gama(1498) down 

 to Hedges (1683) none of the Indian travellers seem to mention agave. It is 

 not referred to in the Memoirs of Baber nor the Administration of Akbar (the 

 Ain-i-Akbari), though the pine-apple appears in the latter work. It is perhaps 

 referred to by Hove in 1787, and twenty years later Buchanan-Hamilton speaks 

 of its being much planted as a hedge. There is reason to believe that it was 

 introduced into Northern India by Rohillas from the south on purpose to be 

 employed as an impenetrable hedge around forts. The name ketki (usually re- 

 stricted to PriMffffiircN) is the most general name for agave in Central India. But 

 it is significant that Rheede should say nothing of agave in hia account of the 



31 



Indian Record. 



Not mentioned 

 by Early Writers. 



