[ 125 ] 

 Ayaveae (also certain other fibre plants) or to their products. 



Bulletin, 

 page 



20 



18, 19 



20 



40 



Do. 



21, 41 



REMARKS 



Hat hi = elephant; Chingar probably means a 'claw/ or 'thorn;' 

 Mukerji does not give the locality, 



Cf. the preceding. 



From an article by Moiis. M. F. Fasio at p. 342, Journ. d'J Agriculture 

 Tropicale, No. 4l, 190i, it appears that iu Algeria, where Agave is 

 utilized on a commercial scale for fibre, the French experts are 

 familiar with three ' Aloe-fibre ' species, viz. (1) A. americana 

 so called, which we believe to be our Agave (D), naturalized 

 and planted in Algeria ; (2) ' Sisal ' or ' Henequen,' which should 

 be our (G) or a closely allied species ; (3) Pite d ' Haiti which 

 from Barnardin (quoted by Dodge) is ' Agave foetida,' commonly 

 identified with Furcraea gigantea, Ventenat, and the ' Mauritius 

 Hemp ' (which see, also Pite, etc.). Mons. Fasio has recently exhi- 

 bited in Paris (at the Muse"e Commercial de F Office Colonial) a 

 superior staple of the class of ' Hayti Hemp' (and 'Sisal') which he 

 getsfroqja plant naturalized in Algeria, referred by him to Agave 

 without further identification or description. This may be the 

 second naturalized Agave of S. Spain and N. Africa which some 

 authorities have referred to 'A. mexicana, LamdrcJc ; l>ut that, in 

 so far as it is anything beyond a name, was a Furcraea. 



Possibly Agave (D). 



C. Q. Hope is quoted for the identification. 



See the next. 



Sloane cites Oviedo without question; also Purchas* Voyages. 

 Martius will have it that Oviedo's Henequen was a Furcraea, 

 and this may be so; but Sloane's Aloe Yuccae foliis, based on the 

 Henequen of early English travellers on the mainland, was pretty 

 certainly one of the Yucatan Euagaves, which, as cultivated 

 for the fibre, have a very Yucca-like aspect. For other references 

 by Sloane, see Anana de Pite, Caroiv, and Grass silk, also Pati. 



Martius supposes that the Henequen and Pita of the islands 

 were derived mainly from species of Furcreea, and that some of 

 these with the Haitian or the Carib names were transplanted to 

 the mainland, where they extended to different other plants, some 

 belonging probably to the Sromeliaceae. There is probably much 

 truth in this as regards the northern shores of S. America, but in 

 Yucatan the fibre industry came, according to tradition, from 

 Mexico, and the native home of the Sisal group of Euagave is 

 rather to be looked for on the Pacific slope of C. America. 

 Mr. Dodge remarks that 'Nequen' was a native Mexican word ; 

 and the dominant races who maintained the cultivation of different 

 Suagaves both for mead and cordage came from the N. West or 

 South and not from the islands. Whatever may have been the 

 ancient history of the word it is now applied in the chief markets 

 to the Yucatan fibres, and to those of the Sisal group more 

 particularly. See also Sisal Hemp, etc. 



