Jalisco the blue agave plant. It is the most famous type of mezcal produced in Mexico, and the only mezcal which is produced industrially with strict standards. The tequila industry supports large scale cultivation of the blue agave, with about 200,000 people employed through it directly or indirectly. It is named after a small town northwest of the city of Guadalajara in the center of where it is produced and the native region of the blue agave. The plant was used in pre-Hispanic times to make a ceremonial drink. The Spanish used the sweet heart of the mature plant, called a
Agave shawii flowering. Seeds are best sown fresh with no stratification required. Agave shawii Agave shawii, with the common names coastal agave or Shaw's agave, is a very rare and critically endangered species in the genus "Agave" native to southwestern California and Baja California. The plant is named for Henry Shaw, the founder of the Missouri Botanical Garden. The plant is native to California coastal sage and chaparral habitats, along the Pacific Coast of northern Baja California state of Mexico and southwesternmost San Diego County of California. It is much more common in the wild in Baja California than in San Diego