Found 2 items, similar to Agave Americana.
English → English (WordNet) Definition: Agave americana Agave americana n : widely cultivated American monocarpic plant with greenish-white flowers on a tall stalk; blooms only after ten to twenty years and then dies [syn: American agave]
English → English (gcide) Definition: Agave Americana Sisal grass \Si*sal" grass`\, Sisal hemp \Si*sal" hemp`\, The prepared fiber of the Agave Americana, or American aloe, used for cordage; -- so called from Sisal, a port in Yucatan. See Sisal hemp, under Hemp. [1913 Webster] Pita \Pi"ta\, n. [Sp.] (Bot.) (a) A fiber obtained from the Agave Americana and other related species, -- used for making cordage and paper. Called also pita fiber, and pita thread. (b) The plant which yields the fiber. [1913 Webster] [1913 Webster] Maguey \Mag"uey\, n. [Sp. maguey, Mexican maguei and metl.] (Bot.) Any of several species of Agave, such as the century plant (Agave Americana), a plant requiring many years to come to maturity and blossoming only once before dying; and the Agave atrovirens, a Mexican plant used especially for making pulque, the source of the colorless Mexican liquor mescal; and the cantala (Agave cantala), a Philippine plant yielding a hard fibre used in making coarse twine. See Agave. [1913 Webster + WordNet 1.5] 2. A hard fibre used in making coarse twine, derived from the Philippine Agave cantala (Agave cantala); also called cantala. [WordNet 1.5] Agave \A*ga"ve\, n. [L. Agave, prop. name, fr. Gr. ?, fem. of ? illustrious, noble.] (bot.) A genus of plants (order Amaryllidace[ae]) of which the chief species is the maguey or century plant (Agave Americana ), wrongly called Aloe. It is from ten to seventy years, according to climate, in attaining maturity, when it produces a gigantic flower stem, sometimes forty feet in height, and perishes. The fermented juice is the pulque of the Mexicans; distilled, it yields mescal. A strong thread and a tough paper are made from the leaves, and the wood has many uses. [1913 Webster] Amole \A*mo"le\, n. [Mex.] (Bot.) Any detergent plant, or the part of it used as a detergent, as the roots of Agave Americana, Chlorogalum pomeridianum , etc. [Sp. Amer. & Mex.] [Webster 1913 Suppl.] Century \Cen"tu*ry\, n.; pl. Centuries. [L. centuria (in senses 1 & 3), fr. centum a hundred: cf. F. centurie. See Cent.] 1. A hundred; as, a century of sonnets; an aggregate of a hundred things. [Archaic.] [1913 Webster] And on it said a century of prayers. --Shak. [1913 Webster] 2. A period of a hundred years; as, this event took place over two centuries ago. [1913 Webster] Note: Century, in the reckoning of time, although often used in a general way of any series of hundred consecutive years (as, a century of temperance work), usually signifies a division of the Christian era, consisting of a period of one hundred years ending with the hundredth year from which it is named; as, the first century (a. d. 1-100 inclusive); the seventh century (a.d. 601-700); the eighteenth century (a.d. 1701-1800). With words or phrases connecting it with some other system of chronology it is used of similar division of those eras; as, the first century of Rome (A.U.C. 1-100). [1913 Webster] 3. (Rom. Antiq.) (a) A division of the Roman people formed according to their property, for the purpose of voting for civil officers. (b) One of sixty companies into which a legion of the army was divided. It was Commanded by a centurion. [1913 Webster] Century plant (Bot.), the Agave Americana, formerly supposed to flower but once in a century; -- hence the name. See Agave. The Magdeburg Centuries, an ecclesiastical history of the first thirteen centuries, arranged in thirteen volumes, compiled in the 16th century by Protestant scholars at Magdeburg. [1913 Webster]