AGAVE, fi-ga've. (Gk. fem. of iiyav6f, aganos, noble, high-born), CEN'TERY PLANT. A genus of plants belonging to the natural order Amaryllidaeele, and having a tubular perianth with a six-partite limb, and a coriaceous, many seeded capsule. They are hcrbaeeous plants, of remarkable and beautiful appearance. There are a number of species, all natives of the warmer parts of America. By unscientific persons they are often confounded with Aloes (q.v.); and Americana is generally known by the name of American Aloe. The agaves have either no proper stem, or a very short one, bearing at its summit a crowded head of large, fleshy leaves, which are often spiny at the margin. From the midst of these shoots up the straight, upright scape, somethnes 20 feet high, and at the base several inches in diameter, along which are small, appressed, lanceolate bractea', with a terminal panicle. often hearing as many as 4000 flowers. In South America these plants often flower in their eighth year, but in hot-houses not until they have reached a very advanced age; whence arises the gardeners' fable of their flowering only once in a hundred years. After flowering, in some species, the plant dies down to the ground, but the root, continuing, to live, sends up new shoots. The best known species is Agave Americana, of which there are several varieties with striped or margined leaves, which was first brought from South America to Europe in 1501, and being easily propagated by suckers, is em ployed for fences in Italian Switzerland, and has become naturalized in Naples, Sicily, and the north of Africa. By maceration of the leaves,
which are 5 to 7 feet long, are obtained coarse fibres, which are used in America, under the name of nut!n/cy, for the manufacture of thread, twine, ropes. hammocks, etc. This fibre is also known as Pita flax. It is now produced to sonic extent in the south of Europe. It is not very strong or durable, and if exposed to moisture it soon decays. The ancient Mexicans employed it for the preparation of a coarse kind of paper, and the liolians use it for oakum. The leaves. cut into slices. are used for feeding cattle. An other species, Agave Nexieana, is partieularly described by Humboldt on account of its utility. When the innermost leaves have been torn out, a juice continues to flow for a eon iderable tune, which, In inspissation, yields sugar, and which when diluted with water and subjected to four or five days' fermentation becomes an agreeable but intoxicating drink, vaned plaque. Pulque is also produced from a number of other species, especially from Agave atrovirens. and a distilled liquor, mescal, is a product of species of this plant. Agave rigida sisalana, a native of Yuca tan, yields an important fibre which, under the name of Sisal hemp, is extensively used for cord age. A few species of the genus Agave are known from Tertiary rocks of Europe. Consult: George Englemann, Botanical Works (Cambridge, Mass., 1887) A. Isabel Mulford, The Agaves of the United States (St. Louis, 1896) ; Academy of Science, St. Louis, Transactions (St. Louis, 1875).