Thorny Treasures of the
Chihuahuan Desert
by Jean Nance
O
uch!! How many times have we all uttered
that, or worse, while walking in the
Chihuahuan Desert, where every plant in the
landscape seems to be armored with some kind of sharp
spine, prickle, or needle?
These plants are "well-defended" with good reason,
as it turns out, because those sharp defenses protect
some tasty and nutritious contents. In fact, some of our
thorniest and most useful inhabitants are “indicator
plants” of the Chihuahuan Desert; that is, they typify
this eco-region and help to define its limits, such as the
endemic lechuguilla, our smallest agave.
The sharp-tipped lechuguilla and other agaves, sotols,
yuccas, ocotillos, cacti, and mesquites were staples that
desert life was built upon.
Archaeological sites such as Hinds Cave in Val Verde
County or Carved Rock Shelter in Brewster County give
us insights into daily life as far back as 5000 years ago.
Carvings, pictographs, and artifacts show a broad botan-
ic history, from wooden artifacts like arrows and lances
made from stalks of sotol, yucca, or lechuguilla, to fiber
artifacts like basketry and cloth made from agave and
yucca leaves.
Hard seeds and pods, such as mesquite beans, were
ground in mortar holes, and storage pits were lined with
fibrous materials like prickly pear pads and grasses.
Stone hand axes and other tools showed evidence of
agave harvesting and food preparation.
The scarlet
flower buds on
an ocotillo.
Mesquite branch with leaves
and long thorns.
Cholla, an unusual prickly pear,
with its bumpy yellow, edible fruit.
Bloom stalk of lechuguilla, our
smallest agave.
Sotol, with nasty spines on
the leaf margins.
Drawings courtesy James Henrickson. Cholla drawing by Ellen Ruggia.
22
THE AGAVES
In their encyclopedia of useful wild plants, Cheatham
and Johnston say that “whole prehistoric cultures lived
and died by the availability of agaves,” and then devote an
astounding 34 pages to their historical references and uses.
Agaves, a New World family, have been a valuable
source of food, fibers, medicine, and shelter for thou-
sands of years, and were even cultivated centuries before
European exploration.
After Europeans arrived, agaves were quickly export-
ed to Europe and were cultivated in the Mediterranean
by 1586.
Agaves provide two types of food: pulp (mescal) and
sap (aguamiel). Pulp can be derived from the heart, leaves
or stalk and is a good source of calcium. Slow cooking in
stone-lined baking pits was the favored approach for pro-
ducing the best pulp, which could be made into cakes,
syrup or beverages. The Apache glazed dried cakes with
agave juice to improve their storage life. Pulp was often
combined with other foods, such as walnuts, juniper or
sumac berries, or various greens, and you can’t mix a
margarita without today’s best-known product, tequila,
which is distilled from cooked agave hearts.
Cenizo
First Quarter 2013
Mescalero Apaches received their name from their
regular consumption of mescal for food and drink,
including a fermented drink also called mescal. Parry’s
Agave (Agave parryi), commonly called the “mescal
agave,” was considered a staple food of the Apaches,
and is one of the agaves whose range was possibly
extended by pre-Columbian cultivation.
Agave sap can be made into unfermented or ferment-
ed drinks. The sweet (high sucrose) sap contains vitamins
B and C and some amino acids. Agave flowers, seeds,
sprouts and nectar are edible. Flowers were often boiled
and dried for storage, even though yucca flowers were
preferred.
Lechuguilla (Agave lechuguilla) seed sprouts are tasty,
and some tribes roasted flower stalks over coals, but
lechuguilla’s best contribution might have been its fibers,
woven into items such as ropes, baskets, or matting. Cave
evidence indicates that lechuguilla was greatly preferred
for fibers, composing up to 94 per cent of netting sam-
ples. Lechuguilla’s other major use was soap made from
roots or leaves.
All agaves have some history of medicinal applica-
tions, from treating wounds and snakebites to digestive
problems (fresh agave juice is known as a laxative), but
their most promising use might come from the chemical
precursors to cortisone and other medicinal steroids. In
particular, lechuguilla has yielded cortisone in laborato-
ry testing, and root extracts have shown antibacterial
properties. Folk medicine prescribed it for treating
wounds, infections or snakebites.
SOTOL or DESERT CANDLE
(Dasylirion leiophyllum, Dasylirion texanum)
Sotol might look like a large grass, but watch out for
the sharp sawlike teeth along the edges of the long leaves
on this member of the lily family. Sotol ranks alongside
lechuguilla and other agaves as a desert staple, and was
used in similar ways. Leaves and fibers were woven into
cordage and weavings. Dried flower stalks provided
materials for corrals, porches, roofs and other structures.
As with agaves, sotol hearts were roasted in a rock
“sotol pit” and then eaten or dried, made into cakes or
flour or preserved for later consumption. Young flower
stalks were also roasted. A stout drink called sotol was
made by fermenting the cabbage-like heart, and was a
favorite alcoholic beverage of the Kickapoo as recently
as the 1970s.
THE YUCCAS
The many species of yuccas were such important
resources that they are one of only a few wild plants
identified in prehistoric petroglyphs. Fibers might have