Huaco, amole

Agave variegata Jacobi, Hamburger Garten- Blumenzeitung 21: 459. 1865; Manfreda tamazunchalensis Matuda; M. xilitlensis Matuda; Polianthes variegata (Jacobi) Shinners

Rhizomes globose. Leaves erect-arching, succulent, 14–45 × 1–2.7(–3.9 in cultivated specimens) cm; blade sometimes spotted with elongate brown or green markings, sometimes glaucous, deeply channeled, linear-lanceolate, margins usually with small, distantly spaced teeth. Scape 4.7–10.8 dm (–13.3 in cultivation). Inflorescences lax, (0.75–)1.4–2.9 dm (–4.8 dm in cultivation), bearing 7–41 distantly spaced flowers. Flowers sessile, spreading, with cooked onion odor; tepals green or mahogany brown; perianth tube broadly funnelform-campanulate, 0.6–1.6 cm; limb lobes recurved, yellowish green or brownish, (0.6–)0.9–1.6 cm; filaments wide-spreading at maturity, bent near middle in bud, exceeding tube by 3–6.5(–8.2) cm; ovary 9–19 mm; style ± equal to stamens; stigma pale green or brownish, clavate-triangular, 3-angled, furrowed apically, lobes not reflexed. Capsules globose to cylindrical, 1.6–1.8(–2.5) × 1.3–1.6 cm.

Flowering Feb--Jun; flowering period of inflorescences extending up to 40 days; fruiting early summer--mid fall, ca. 75 days after flowering begins. Dry chaparral or moist situations, on rocky slopes, open or dense oak woods in Mexico; 0--2000 m; Tex.; Mexico (Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas, and s along e Sierra Madre Oriental to Veracruz, Yucatán).

Manfreda variegata is occasionally cultivated as an ornamental (S. E. Verhoek 1978).