28 



The Plant World. 



constitute the source of the principal commercial fibers from the 

 region above named. 



From the city of Saltillo come reports* that from that con- 

 sular district during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1907, were 

 shipped 2,156 tons of lechuguilla fiber, and 5,554 tons of that 

 from the palma. All of the latter went to the United States 

 at 3.7 cents a pound, while the lechuguilla fiber was divided 

 between the United States and European countries at a price 

 slightly lower. And this record of shipment reckons only with 

 the crude fiber and takes no account of the articles manufactured 

 at home from the same material. Maguey fiber brings a higher 

 price but is not nearly so abundant. 



The leaves of these plants are narrow elongated organs. 

 Those of lechuguilla are twelve to eighteen inches in length, 

 one to one and one-half inches in breadth, with a thickness of 

 one-third of an inch or less. In transverse section they appear 

 crescentic in outline. Each plant produces a dozen or more of 

 these leaves, diverging at various angles from the base, and sur- 

 rounding a central bud or "cogollo" of leaves not yet unfolded. 

 In the palma the arrangement of leaves is similar, but the 

 form of the leaf is different. In this case they are straight, 

 about two feet long, at the widest about two inches, and ane- 

 fourth of an inch more or less in thickness. They are some- 

 what narrowed toward the base, and the distal end termi- 

 nates in a strong sharp spine. 



The fibers of the plants which furnish this commercial 

 product are, so to speak, a part of the skeletal structure of these 

 plants. They are a part of the mechanical tissues which give 

 strength and rigidity to the leaves. In these particular cases 

 they are strands of hardened or sclerified tissue in immediate 

 association with the vascular bundles or conducting tissues. 

 These sclerified strands consist of much elongated cells whose 

 walls are greatly thickened. These cells are closely knit together 

 in long strands of great strength. The thickness of the fiber in 

 the mature leaf differs much with its position in the leaf, those 

 in the central tissues being always thickest and diminishing in 

 diameter toward the surface of the leaf. The thickest of the 

 mature fibers observed in each of the three plants under consider- 

 ation was about four-tenths mm. in diameter. 



* Monthly Consular and Trade Reports, No. 326, page 137, November, 1907. 



