Plants short-stemmed pachycauls, perennial, often flowering after 8-20+ years, monocarpic or polycarpic, acaulescent or caulescent, scapose, forming succulent rosettes on thick, fibrous-rooted crowns, often rhizomatous. Stems aboveground, unbranched or, less often, branched. Leaves evergreen in rosette; blade light green to green and occasionally with lighter patterns of white ('cross-zoned') or imprinted with white ('bud-prints'), linear-lanceolate to ovate, firm to rigid, often thick and fleshy, margins entire, filiferous, or armed with marginal teeth and short to long, sharp-pointed apical spine. Scapes, with inflorescences, much exceeding foliage. Inflorescences terminal atop a semiwoody stalk, spicate, racemose, or paniculate, open to dense, bracteate, occasionally bulbiferous, with flowers borne singly, in pairs, or in umbellike clusters of 2-40+ on peduncles or the lateral branches borne by the peduncle. Flowers protandrous, erect or recurved, showy; perianth mostly yellow, infrequently whitish or reddish, funnelform to tubular; tepals 6, connate basally into tube atop a typically constricted neck; limb lobes erect or curved, equal to unequal in length and/or width, linear to oblong or deltate, often papillate at recurved or hooded apex; stamens 6, exserted, attached atop or within perianth tube; filaments mostly filiform; anthers versatile, linear; ovary inferior, greenish at anthesis, 3-locular, succulent, thick-walled, ovules numerous; style subulate; stigma 3-lobed, glandular, capitate, papillate. Fruits capsular, oblong to ovoid, mostly thick walled and fleshy, dehiscence loculicidal. Seeds black, flattened, obovoid, becoming globose distally. x = 30 (5 large, 25 small). Specimens of Agave are planted occasionally for their horticultural value in warmer regions. Native Americans have used most of our native species for food and fiber. Mescal and tequila are distilled liquors derived from the meristem and leaf base of agave. Tequila comes mainly from A. tequilana F. A. C. Weber, whereas A. angustifolia Haworth is the usual source for 'commerical' mescal. Some variants of A. angustifolia are also important sources of fiber. Commercially, most agave fiber comes from A. sisalana in what is now a worldwide industry. Agave fourcroydes Lemaire is also used but more locally in Latin America including Mexico. Both species are sterile hybrids of unknown origin. Native Americans who used agave plants for food and fiber developed numerous cultivars, including many that may be the results of hybridization or mutation events resulting in fully or partially sterile clones. Some have been sufficiently studied cytologically and morphologically so that the origin of the hybrid species can be ascertained. Naturally occurring hybrids also are known, and some sterile recombinants are so distinctive that they have been formally named (e.g., Agave ×ajoensis, A. ×arizonica, A. ×glomeruliflora, and probably A. schottii var. treleasei). There remain some species that may be of hybrid origin, or at least now are sterile or partially sterile, but little is known about their origin. Essentially, all the species are known today from pre-Columbian agricultural sites, and most appear to have had a Mexican origin (e.g., the many expressions of A. americana subsp. americana, A. decipiens, A. desmettiana, A. neglecta, A. delamateri, A. phillipsiana, A. sisalana, and A. weberi). Some rare species associated with pre-Columbian sites are fertile (e.g., A. murpheyi); whether they were locally selected or brought from elsewhere is unknown. Some hybrid expressions, such as A. gracilipes, seem to be well established. It is a matter of taxonomic judgment whether the species status for A. gracilipes should be altered to hybrid status; we have not proposed that now because the cytological work to confirm the morphological hypothesis of a hybrid origin has not been done. Indigenous people long have used agaves. Those containing high amounts of sapogenins are bitter and generally not used for food. Agave plants used for food are harvested when they show signs of flowering. Rosettes are collected and the leaves cut away, leaving the 'heart' or 'head,' which is pit-baked for many hours. It has been known for a long time that agaves have been cultivated in the warmer regions of North America, but it was only recently discovered that cultivation occurred north of the Mexican border. Such agaves are typically found near agricultural features and possess morphological characteristics that reflect desirable agronomic attributes. People no doubt traded agave products and live plants, thereby expanding the distribution of many expressions of agave. Agaves whose distributions directly reflect their movement by man include Agave murpheyi, A. delamateri, A. phillipsiana, A. applanata, A. karatto Miller, and A. decipiens. It is also suggested that A. americana subsp. americana var. expansa, A. desmettiana, A. sisalana, A. neglecta, and A. weberi may have been ancient cultivars originating in Latin America or the Caribbean, although at present there is little information to support this hypothesis. Identification of Agave species is often difficult, especially with nonflowering material. See H. S. Gentry (1982, p. 47) for information on how to prepare specimens properly.
Plants perennial, scapose, rhizomatous; rhizomes upright, globose, or cylindrical. Roots fleshy or fibrous. Stems subterranean. Leaves in rosettes, flexible, thin or succulent; blade linear-lanceolate to oblanceolate, often glaucous, sometimes mottled, base membranous [fibrous in species of s Mexico], margins entire, papillose, or dentate, with cartilaginous teeth, apex a soft point. Inflorescences racemose or spikate, bracteate; proximal flowers occasionally pedicellate. Flowers usually solitary at node, nocturnal; tepals connate basally into tube, green, sometimes tinged with brown, or pale yellow, or white to pink; perianth tube narrowly to broadly funnelform; limb lobes erect or recurved, oblong; stamens 6; filaments inserted on tube, in bud straight or bent, usually exserted at anthesis; ovary inferior; style usually exserted at maturity; stigma capitate, 3-angled and furrowed, or 3-lobed with lobes reflexed. Fruits capsular, globose to cylindrical, dehiscence loculicidal. Seeds flat, triangular, 0.3-0.6 cm on radial margins. x = 30. Most Manfreda species occur in Mexico. All species grow in rocky or sandy ground, frequently on slopes. At anther maturity, the style is shorter than the filaments, or bent downward away from the anthers. By stigma maturity on the third day, the style has elongated (and straightened). Manfreda has been included in both Agave and Polianthes in other floras.
Tep united below, withering persistent on the capsular, trilocular fr; filaments slender, exsert, with versatile linear anthers; ovary inferior; style subulate, with a 3-lobed stigma; seeds numerous, flat, black; monocarpic acaulescent perennials, ultimately producing an erect scape with an elongate, terminal infl of ochroleucous or chloroleucous to yellow or orange fls; 2n=60, 10 large, 50 small. (Manfreda) 300, warm New World.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.