Anij'lSyy,i9wfrm'}       Products  of  the  Century  Plants.  325 
copper,  lead,  hides,  precious  woods  and  zacaton  root,  the  values  of 
which  are  usually  about  as  in  the  order  given.  In  the  production  of 
silver,  Mexico  contests  first  place  with  the  United  States.  She  pro- 
duces all  the  henequen  of  commerce. 
Henequen  (pronounced  hen'e-ken)  is  a  coarse  vegetable  fibre 
from  3  to  5  feet  long.  Its  color  is  pale-yellow,  nearly  white.  In 
Mexico  the  fibre  is  known  by  many  names,  the  correct  one  and  that 
most  commonly  used  being  henequen.1  In  the  United  States  it  is 
often  called  henequen,  but  more  commonly  sisal  (pronounced  sis'al) 
or  sisal  grass,  or  sisal  hemp.  The  name  sisal  is  given  it  because  it 
was  formerly  exported  from  the  port  of  Sisal  on  the  northern  coast 
of  Yucatan. 
The  plant  which  yields  sisal  fibre  is  a  species  of  agave  (pro- 
nounced ah-ga'va)  or  century  plant,  known  to  the  botanists  as  Agave 
rigida  sisalana.  When  growing  in  our  greenhouses  we  refer  to  it  as 
a  century  plant,  but  not  as  the  century  plant.  It  is  very  similar  to 
the  common  century  plant  and  belongs  to  the  same  group  or  order 
of  plants  (Amaryltidacece)y  all  of  which,  although  there  are  about 
125  species,  resemble  each  other  in  a  general  way,  just  as  all  species 
of  violets  resemble  each  other.  The  full  grown  sisal  plant  has  a 
thick  stalk  about  3  or  4  feet  high,  bearing  at  the  top  a  number  of 
long,  broad,  stout,  fleshy  leaves,  with  short,  sharp  spines  along  both 
edges,  and  a  longer  sharper  spine  at  the  tip.  The  flowers,  of  which 
there  are  several  thousand,  are  borne  on  horizontal  branches  near 
the  top  of  a  pole-like  flower-stalk  from  20  to  30  feet  high.  The 
stalk  and  flowers  resemble  a  tall  candelabrum  with  numerous 
brackets,  each  bearing  hundreds  of  lights.  The  fibre  occurs  as 
threads  running  the  entire  length  of  the  leaf  from  the  base  to  the 
apex.    It  is  embedded  in  a  great  amount  of  white  pulp. 
1  There  is  much  confusion  regarding  the  names  applied  to  this  fibre.  Hene- 
quen is  used  in  a  generic  sense  to  include  all  the  long  agave  fibres  grown  in 
Southern  Mexico.  In  a  restricted  sense  it  is  applied  to  a  finer,  whiter  fibre 
than  that  usually  designated  as  sisal.  There  is  some  doubt  as  to  whether  the 
sisal  and  henequen  are  yielded  by  different  species  of  agave  or  by  different 
agricultural  varieties. 
Maguey  is  a  term  used  in  a  generic  sense  to  designate  various  species  of 
agave  and  the  products  obtained  from  them.  In  a  restricted  sense  maguey  is 
applied  to  the  sap-yielding  varieties.  Ixtle  is  a  term  used  to  designate  the 
short  varieties  of  agave  fibre  and  is  applied  also  to  the  fibre  of  various  other 
plants. 
