Guayule << gwah YOO lee or wy OO lee >> is a rubber-producing shrub that is native to the desert of southwestern Texas and north-central Mexico. The guayule plant grows 1 to 3 feet (30 to 90 centimeters) tall. Its branches have silver leaves shaped like spearheads. Tiny white flowers grow in small clusters on the stems.
The Aztec Indians played games with rubber balls made from guayule. They chewed guayule bark to get rubber from the plant. In the 1880’s and 1890’s, businesses became interested in guayule as a source of rubber. By 1910, several factories in the United States and Germany were producing rubber from wild guayule. The rubber industry soon switched almost entirely to the tropical hevea rubber tree as its source of natural rubber. During World War II (1939-1945), Japanese occupation of the Far East endangered the U.S. rubber supply from the hevea tree. Guayule rubber production was revived in California to help maintain a secure source of rubber.
