New Century, Old Plant

Carolanne Sudderth

Mirror staff writer

   With a new millennium nearly here, it's time to talk about the agave. Not only is Agave americana popularly known as the “century plant” but a close cousin (Agave tequilana) is the source of California’s favorite celebratory beverage – tequila, gallons of which will doubtless be consumed over the weekend.
   It's called the century plant’s because it was thought, erroneously, that it flowered only once every 100 years. In fact, it should be called the “decade plant.” 
   The basis for the misnomer is that each plant shoots one huge tree-like flower into the air just before it keels over and dies. Though it actually happens every decade or two, it’s a flower that’s hard to ignore. 
   The inflorescence is a branched pedicel on a trunk-like peduncle 15 to 40 feet tall. (Occasionally, one of our “junior” colleagues misidentifies an agave flower as a tree.) These are pollinated by bats who cluster-flutter around them like moths around a radio antenna.
   Exhausted by its labors, the mama agave expires after shooting up its giant floral display, but leaves behind it a sea of “pups,” thousands (well, maybe dozens) of small spiked bundles that emerge from under her wilted skirts. 
   Those little spikes, by the way, when brushed up against, inflict far more than love bites. Agaves are armed and dangerous. Each fleshy triangular leaf is provisioned with thorns up either side and climaxes in a vicious black needle almost an inch long.
The century plant was valued by the Mexican Indians who dwelt in the Sonoran deserts as its leaves gave them a rope-like fiber called sisal and they could be separated into translucent sheets which were used as paper. 
   But perhaps its most famous by-product is a delicate elixir which many people use to suppress the low points of their lives and underscore the high ones-- an ancient Indian remedy called “tequila.”
   Legend has it that tequila was born of the “love and curiosity” of a woman with the euphonious name of Mayahuetl. She discovered how to obtain the aguamiel (literally, honey-water) from the heart of the blue agave (Agave tequilana) also known as Weber’s maguey. Her husband, Patecatl, learned to ferment it. 
   Mayahuetl and Patecatl were members of the Tequila Indian tribe which took its name from the Tequila volcano. (Tequila means “rock-that-cuts,” a reference to the quantities of obsidian found in the region -— a fitting name for a drink that some call paradise and others pure poison.)
   Only that produced from “100% blue agave” is the real stuff. Many producers add sugar to the brew to increase the alcohol during the fermentation process, but this is considered cheating by connoisseurs. Those containing less than 51% agave-derived sugars are not real Tequila. “Mezcal” (the stuff with the worm) is also made from the maguey, but is not as strong. 
   The worm is actually a caterpillar, the larva of an insect that bores into the heart of the maguey plant. The preserved state of the pickled-worm corpse is supposed to be an indication of the quality of the liquor. 
   Agaves are survivors requiring little care, but their formidable bulk and vicious thorns make them difficult to remove, if you change your mind about them later. Be sure you want them there before you start your own tequila farm.
   A desert native itself, agave is often used in xeriphytic and rock gardens. Their long “strap-shaped” leaves are like long, fleshy needle-tipped triangles and radiate out, rosette-style and depending on variety can range in length from six inches to eight feet long.
   Drought tolerant, their fleshy leaves will shrivel and pucker a bit it they don’t receive the little water they need, but will plump right up again.