Agave fourcroydes, commonly known as henequen, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to southern Mexico and Guatemala. It is cultivated, particularly in eastern Mexico, for its leaf fiber, known as henequen and used to make rope, twine, and other products.
Like sisal, A. fourcroydes is a sterile hybrid that is propagated vegetatively rather than from seed. It produces bulbils and suckers, although cultivation generally relies on suckers.
Description Agave fourcroydes can have a trunk as tall as . It has a rosette of long narrow (lanceolate) leaves about long and wide. The leaves are gray-green and have widely spaced teeth along their edges and a strong dark brown terminal spine long. Numerous offsets are produced so that very large plants may form. The green to yellow flowers are produced in a many-branched panicle tall. A. fourcroydes is sterile, so no seeds are produced, but many bulbils appear after flowering.
Cultivation The leaves of Agave fourcroydes yield a fiber also called henequen, which is suitable for rope and twine but not of as high a quality as sisal. It has been cultivated for fibre in eastern Mexico for many years, most commonly in Yucatán, Veracruz, and Tamaulipas, and has been grown widely elsewhere, for ornament as well as for fibre. It is also used to make , a traditional Mexican alcoholic drink. It may be used as an ornamental plant in areas where temperatures below do not occur, as it is frost tender.
It can be propagated either from its bulbils or from offsets.
The first person of Spanish descent to document the plant and its usefulness for ropes and other naval utensils was José María Lanz, a Mexican-born engineer in service of the Spanish Navy, who studied henequen in Yucatán in 1783.
Mezcal Henequen, like other species of agave, is used in the production of mezcal.
Gallery
See also Henequen industry in Yucatán International Year of Natural Fibres 2009
References
Further reading
Reprinted in
External links
Henequen-growing Haciendas in the Yucatan