• Family : AGAVACEAE
  (Agave Family)
• Family (Hindi name) : RAJANIGANDHA FAMILY (रजनीगंधा फैमिली)
• Family (as per The APG System III) : ASPARAGACEAE
• Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Agave sisalana Perrine.
• Common name : Sisal Hemp, Hemp plant
• Vernacular name : Kathali, Aanekattale (Kannada); Chanakaitha (Malayalam); Sisul (Oria)
• Habit : Shrub
• Comments / notes : An ornamental hegde plant often cultivated for its fibre (Sisal-hemp), sometimes run wild. Flowers pale green and are replaced by bulbils.
• Key identification features : Large rosette-forming 1 m. Trunks developing offsets. Leaves are straight and stiff, sword-shaped, to one half meter long and 10 cm. wide, grey-green, or green, with horny edge and a small black-brown terminal spine. Inflorescence is a large scape to 6 m. high with terminal branches bearing greenish, odoriferous flowers.
• Flower, Fruit : January-April
• Collection Nos : HFP 1228, CJS 12552
• Distribution :
  • Karnataka : Hassan district, Kodagu (Coorg) district, Shivamogga district, Uttara Kannada district, Dakshina Kannada district
  • Kerala : Malappuram district, Palakkad district, Idukki district, Kollam district, Thiruvananthapuram district
  • Maharashtra : Sindhudurg district
  • Odisha : Cultivated as a regular crop
• Native : New World Tropics
• World Distribution : Widely planted and cultivated in India and Neotropics
• Conservation Status : Not Evaluated (NE)
• Literature : Saldanha & Nicolson, 1976 - Flora of Hassan district, Karnataka; Keshava Murthy & Yoganarasimhan, 1990 - Flora of Coorg district, Karnataka state; Gopalakrishna Bhat, 2003 - Udupi; Gopalakrishna Bhat, 2014 - Flora of South Kanara; R. S. Rao et al., 1986 - Flora of West Godavari District; H. O. Saxena and M. Brahmam, 1989 - The Flora of Similipahar (Similipal), Orissa; B. D. Sharma, S. Karthikeyan & N. P. Singh 1996 - Flora of Maharashtra state - Monocotyledons; Sasidharan, N. 2011. Flowering plants of Kerala. DVD, V 2, KFRI.
• Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Raja K Swamy, Deepak Kumar, Arun Singh R. and K. Gopalakrishna Bhat (2019). Flora of Peninsular India. http://peninsula.ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Agave sisalana. Downloaded on 20 May 2024.

Botanical Description

Field Image(s)