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Agave deserti
Also called Century Plant or Maguey, Mescal, Century Plant, Maguey
Agave deserti (desert agave, mescal, century plant or maguey) is an agave native to desert regions in southern California, Arizona, and Baja California. Its tall yellow flower stalks dot dry rocky slopes and washes throughout the spring.
It forms a rosette of fleshy gray-green leaves 20–70 cm long and 4.5–10 cm broad, with sharp spines along the edges and at the tips. It flowers at maturity (20 to 40 years), sending up an inflorescence 2–6 m tall. The panicle bears numerous yellow, funnel-shaped flowers 3–6 cm long.
The desert agave is drought-tolerant but requires good drainage.
The desert-dwelling Native Americans used fibers from the leaves to make cloth, bowstrings, and rope. Young flower stalks (roasted), buds, and hearts of plants (also roasted) were eaten. Natives of southern California commonly harvested the "heads" using a specialized digging stick and roasted the leaves and heart alike. Food thus obtained often became a dietary staple, even into drought years.
Agave abisaii · Agave americana var. franzosini · American century plant · Century plant · Agave anomala · Agave arcedianoensis · Arizona century plant · Maguey · Fox Tail Agave · Cow's Horn Agave · Agave brittoniana · Cayman Agave
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Agave deserti by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
