This plant is remarkable for its beauty, and grows to a height of twenty
to thirty-five feet. It was long popularly supposed to bloom only once
in a century; hence the name. Though this is a mistaken idea, the
vegetative growth of the plant is many years. The plant produces
flowering stems, sometimes several feet in height, ultimately
terminating in a large panicle of flowers and dying of the effort. A
single plant may produce five thousand flowers, so that the ground
beneath is wet with the honey distilled by them. The fiber of the leaves
was used by the ancient Mexicans for paper parchment, and is now largely
exported for that purpose and for cordage.