metl (Mdz10r)

For centuries or millennia, the Nahuas have used the juice from the core of the metl for making a mildly alcoholic beverage (octli) that came to be called pulque in Spanish. The plant's spines (huitztli) also played a role in religious bloodletting. Sometimes plants were placed in rows around agricultural parcels, serving almost as fences. They are still a regular feature of the central Mexican highlands today. For another example of a metl plant from the sixteenth century, see the Florentine Codex, Book 1, folio 40 recto, where a pot of octli appears next to the plant, which is green in color.