It furnishes _ixtli_ fibre for _ayates_, and it yields _pulque_.

For a dozen years the _maguey_ plant stores away starchy food in its long, thick, sharp-pointed leaves.

It is the intended nourishment for a great shaft of flowers.

Finally, the flower-bud forms amid the cluster of leaves.
Left to itself the plant now sends all its reserve of food into this bud, and the great flower-stalk shoots upward at the rate of several inches daily; then the great pyramid of flowers develops.

But man interferes.