The natural habitat of this agave has a mild climate, with temperatures rarely exceeding the high 70's F or dropping below the low 40's F and receives ample summer rainfall. This makes this plant very much at home in cultivated cool coastal gardens in California where it has even proven to be fairly drought tolerant and has survived light freezes. Plant in full sun to light shade in the garden in a well-drained soil and irrigate infrequently to regularly. It also makes a nice container specimen plant. Agave dasylirioides is in the Striata group (Striatae) and it inhabits volcanic rock cliffs in mountainous areas from 5000 to 7000 feet in elevation in the state of Morelos in Mexico. It is considered to be one of the more primitive of the Agave - what Howard Scott Gentry called "closest to what I conceive as the most generalized of the ancestral form". The name Sotol Maguey is a creative common name given to this plant by Yucca Do Nursery; Sotol is in reference to specific epithet 'dasylirioides', which means "like the genus Dasylirion", for which the common name is Sotol, coupled with Maguey, which is the common name used in Mexico for agave. Our plants are from seed received from Mesa Gardens that was collected in Santa Catarina, in the State of Morelos, Mexico.

In the March issue of Phytotaxa (163:5) in an article titled "Agave dealbata E.Morren ex K.Koch (Asparagaceae), the correct name for Agave dasylirioides Jacobi & C.D.Bouché (Nomenclature of Agave L. I) " the author Joachim Thiede notes that the valid description of this plant as Agave dealbata in 1862 predates by three years the description of the same plant as Agave dasylirioides and therefore is the valid name for this species. The specific epithet dealbata is from the Latin word 'dealbatus, meaning "whitewashed", "plastered", or "covered with whiteness" in reference to the light-colored leaves of this species.

We grew this interesting plant from 2005 until 2016 and listed this plant under the name we received it, as Agave dasylirioides, as we were not sure when the name Agave dealbata would become more widely accepted. Our crops were grown from seed purchased from Mesa Garden and from plants sent to us by Carl Shoenfeld at Yucca Do Nursery. 

Information displayed on this page about Agave dasylirioides is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.