Plant · P-966

Sisal

Agave sisalana

Sisal is a large evergreen agave grown across the tropics and subtropics for the strong leaf fibre stripped from its sword-shaped leaves, the source of most commercial sisal rope, twine, matting and paper. A single rosette lives seven to ten years, sending up 200-250 harvestable leaves before it flowers once on a tall stalk and dies, replacing itself with suckers and stem bulbils long before that happens. Its young shoot hearts and fermented sap are also eaten or drunk locally, and its leaves contain hecogenin, a compound once used in the partial synthesis of cortisone.