Flora of the Southeastern United States

Agave decipiens J.G. Baker. Common name: Florida Agave, False-sisal. Habitat: Shell middens and coastal hammocks, rockland hammocks, coastal rock barrens, often persisting as small understory plants vegetatively until tree-fall gaps stimulate flowering. Distribution: Endemic to s. peninsular FL.

ID notes: This is the only Agave native to FL and produces trunks more frequently than the introduced species.

Origin/Endemic status: Endemic

Taxonomy Comments: A. decipiens is more closely related to species found across the Gulf of Mexico on the Yucatán Peninsula, such as A. angustifolia and A. fourcroydes. Due to this biogeographic peculiarity, the varied polyploid counts published for A. decipiens, morphological similarities, and the known use & cultivation of Agave by Indigenous American groups, it is likely that A. decipiens originated as a cultigen of a Yucatanian species like A. angustifolia, and was then used by pre-Columbian indigenous groups for its fiber and as a food source (Reveal & Hodgkin 2002; Banerjee & Sharma 1989; Zona 2001; Franck 2012), much like the various cultigens associated with indigenous archaeological sites and areas of habitation in the southwestern US & Mexico.

Synonymy ⓘ: = FNA26, K4, NS, POWO, S, S13, SFla, WH3, Franck (2012), Zona (2001). Basionym: Agave decipiens Baker 1892

Links to other floras: = Agave decipiens - FNA26

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Heliophily ⓘ: 8