THE MAGUEY. 



29 



fruit, and is also employed for hedges, its spiny, branch- 

 ing stems admirably adapting it to that purpose. 



There are two varieties of the maguey, differing in the 

 leaves of one being serrated while those of the other are 

 entire. The spreading panicle which shoots up from the 

 cluster of fleshy, sharp- pointed leaves, five to eight feet 

 in length, has straw-colored, liliaceous flowers pendulous 

 from the branches. At a distance the giant flower-stalk 

 resembles a tree in foliage, but on a nearer view the ar- 

 borescent plant exhibits its true nature and beauty. We 

 measured the stem of one, which was twenty inches in cir- 

 cumference at the base and thirty-eight feet in height, a 

 growth it had made in six or eight weeks. The maguey 

 is not only admired for its beauty, but also valued for the 

 uses to which it can be applied. From the fibres of its 

 leaves are made twine, rope, cloth, and hammocks, while 

 the thorn which arms their extremity, when removed with 

 a bundle of the attached fibres, furnishes a needle and 

 thread. The leaves furthermore yield an excellent deter- 

 gent, that washes equally well with salt water or fresh. 

 From the flower-stalk is obtained an excellent beverage, 

 while the pith of the stem, which contains silica, makes 

 excellent razor-strops. This plant, the Ticcca acauUs of 

 Humboldt, and the Codonocrinum agavoides of later bota- 

 nists, is often mistaken for the Agave Americana, or cen- 

 tury-plant, which it resembles in its leaves, but from which 

 it differs essentially in its flowers and inflorescence ; those 

 of the latter terminating the branches in erect clusters, 

 instead of being scattering and pendulous, as we have ob- 

 served, in the former. "We did not see the Agave Ameri- 

 cana in Venezuela, although it is said to grow in some 

 districts of the littoral mountains. 



