"A pineapple is an inflorescence that fuses many berry-like fruitlets into a thorn-tipped aberration."
"Dr. Palmer also sent a full set of the rude apparatus by which the present Indians of Mexico make their cactus-cakes and syrup, from the thorn-tipped pole with which the prickly fruit is gathered to the great earthen colanders through which it is strained; also all the implements and utensils, the native still, etc., used in making _pulque_ and in preparing and weaving the fibre of the agave."