Sisal or sisal hemp is an agaveAgave sisalana that yields a stiff fiber used in making rope. (The term may refer either to the plant or the fiber, depending on context.)
Sisal plants consist of a rosette of sword-shaped leaves about 1.5 to 2 meters tall. Young leaves may have a few minute teeth along their margins, but lose them as they mature. Sisals are sterile hybrids of uncertain origin; although shipped from the port of Sisal in Yucatán (thus the name), they do not actually grow in Yucatán, the plantations cultivating henequen (Agave fourcroydes) instead. Evidence of an indigenous cottage industry in Chiapas suggests it as the original location, possibly as a cross of Agave angustifolia and Agave kewensis.
In the 19th century, sisal cultivation (the plant being propagated via offsets), was spread worldwide, from Florida to the Brazil, as well as to countries in Africa (especially Tanzania) and Asia. Sisal constitutes the majority of natural fiber production worldwide.
Reference
G. W. Lock, Sisal (Longmans Green & Co., 1969)
Howard Scott Gentry, Agaves of Continental North America (University of Arizona Press, 1982) pp. 628-631
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