Wheeler Sotol

Appearance

"Dasylirion wheeleri" is a moderate to slow-growing evergreen shrub with a single unbranched trunk up to 40 centimetres thick growing to 1.5 metres tall, though often recumbent on the ground. The leaf blade is slender, 35–100 cm long, gray-green, with a toothed margin. The leaves radiate from the center of the plant's apex in all directions.

Blooming from May to July, the flowering stem grows above the foliage, to a height of 5 m tall and a diameter of 3 cm. The stem is topped by a long plume of straw-colored small flowers about 2.5 cm long with six tepals. The color of the flower helps determine the gender of the plant, being mostly white for males and purple-pink for females. The fruit is an oval dry capsule 5–8 millimetres long, containing a single seed.

"Dasylirion leiophyllum" is similar, but the toothed leaves curve towards the base.

Flowering Dasylirion Wheeleri in Organ Mountain, New Mexico.jpg|Spring flowering with a vertical stem, Organ Mountains, New Mexico
Sotol.jpg|Flower stem

Naming

"Dasylirion" is a compound word from the Greek, literally meaning 'dense' or 'shaggy' + 'lily'. The Latin specific epithet "wheeleri" refers to the American surveyor and plant collector George Montague Wheeler.

Distribution

It is native to arid, rocky environments of northern Mexico, in Chihuahua and Sonora and in the southwestern United States, in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, and also in New Mexico and western Texas.

Habitat

It is native to arid, rocky environments of northern Mexico, in Chihuahua and Sonora and in the southwestern United States, in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, and also in New Mexico and western Texas.

Uses

"D. wheeleri" is grown as an ornamental plant, valued in xeriscaping. As it does not tolerate extended frosts, in temperate regions it is usually grown under glass. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

The alcoholic drink sotol, the northern cousin to tequila and mezcal, is made from the fermented inner cores of the plant. It is the state drink of the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Coahuila.

It was also used by the natives of the region for food and fiber. Its flower stalk can be used as a fire plow.

The Tarahumara and Pima Bajo peoples of the Sierra Madre Occidental of Chihuahua weave baskets from the leaves after they strip off the spines from the leaf margins. They also employ the expanded leaf bases in making large artificial flowers as holiday decorations.