Agave palmeri

The basal rosette of stiff, succulent, sword-like, spine-tipped leaves are distinctively bluish in color. Greenish-yellow flowers, tinged with purple, appear in a cluster at top of a tall flower stalk. A tall stout flower stalk, resembling a huge candelabrum, growing from center of a compact rosette of thick, rigid, narrowly lanceolate, grayish-green leaves. The plant blooms only once, after which the several-year-old agave dies.

Century plants such as this provided Native Americans in the Southwest with food, beverages, fiber, soap, medicine, and lances.