And Your Point Is

Artwork: #46 of 393 by Joe Schofield

Tags: agave photographs, succulents photographs, cactus photographs, tequila photographs, points photographs, agave canvas prints, succulents canvas prints, cactus canvas prints, tequila canvas prints, points canvas prints

Title:

And Your Point Is

Artist:

Joe Schofield

Medium:

Photograph - Photography

Description:

Agave. There are at least ten species of the genus agave (pronounced ah GAH vee) in Southwest United States. Agaves are a large group of rosette-forming succulent plants. They are usually short-stemmed, although some species can form stems up to 3 feet high. Agaves are mostly native of Mexico, though some are found wild in the United States and the West Indies.

Agaves were one of the most important plant groups for Indian tribes, second only to yuccas. They were a major source for both food and fiber. Agave fibers were used to make many needed items such as brushes, bowstrings, nets, slings, shoes, rope, and thread. Leaves were first soaked, then pounded to release their fibers. The fibers were next dried and then combed to separate the threads. Almost all parts of the agave, leaves, flower, stalk, blossoms, and seeds, can be eaten. Agave leaves were collected and roasted in pits. But uncooked, the leaves of some agave species are poison. Indians of the Chihuahuan Desert used the juice from the lechuigilla (Agave lechugilla) to poison their arrow tips.

The century plant, also called desert agave, spends most of its life as a rosette, a cluster of basal leaves. Characteristic of other agaves, its flowering is delayed. But in this case, it could be as long as thirty years - - but not even close to its erroneously labeled century. When it does flower, the stalk erupts from the center of the rosette and grows at an astonishing rate, two and one-half inches each day, until it reaches five to fifteen feet in height. The plant then blooms for several weeks and then dies. The plant's death is largely due to expending its supply of water and plant food resources to grow the flower stalk. Therefore it has to die, but not before its flowers have been pollinated and up to 65,000 seeds have been propagated.

The century plant is an enormous food and water source for desert life. During the driest months of the year, its leaves are often the only water source for many bighorn sheep. The yellow flowers that bloom May to July when few other plants flower provide nectar for hummingbirds and insects. The plant provides food for the caterpillar of giant skipper butterfly, and carpenter bees make their home by tunneling into the pithy flower stalk.

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