Rosettes (3.5-)4-6 × 6-7.5 dm. Leaves (18-)25-50 × (4.5-)8-12 cm; blade linear to ovate. Flowers 6-7.7 cm; perianth tube 9-12 mm, limb lobes (17-)19-24 mm; filaments 4-5.4 cm; ovary (2.7-) 3-4.7 cm.

Flowering mid spring--mid summer. Gravelly to rocky places in grasslands, desert scrub, chaparral, pinyon-juniper, and oak woodlands; 1200--2800 m; Ariz., N.Mex.; nw Mexico.

B. Ullrich (1992) showed that the earlier name Agave scabra Salm-Dyck was based on a collection attributable to A. parryi, and that the correct name for what H. S. Gentry (1982) called A. scabra is A. asperrima. Fortunately, the Salm-Dyck name is illegitimate, being a later homonym, and so A. parryi remains the correct one. Variety parryi hybridizes with A. chrysantha and A. schottii var. schottii in Arizona.