the health and vigour of the individuals, and the degree of 
heat to which they have been exposed. Many live toa great 
age, and appear never to flower at all. In warm climates 
twenty-five or thirty years, and, probably, a much shorter 
period is sufficient to bring them to perfection. The most 
remarkable instance on record of the early flowering of the 
American Aloe is that detailed by Mr: Hawngrns in the Trans- 
actions of the Horticultural Society, v. 4. p. 389. This took 
place in the open ground, at Woodville, near Salcombe, 
Devonshire, the residence of the late James Yates, Esq., and 
considering that the plant is a native of South America, 
more especially within the tropics, it.tells more for the mild- 
ness of that part of England, than any circumstance that 
could be mentioned. The Aloe was planted in 1804, when 
it was only about’six inches high, and then two or three years 
old, within a few yards of the sea-shore, yet elevated forty 
or fifty feet above the level of the water, where it never had 
any cover, shelter, manure, or cultivation. In 1812, it was 
more than five feet high, and it grew during that summer, 
nearly the eighth of an inch daily. In 1820 it measured 
between ten and eleven feet in height, and covered’a space, 
the diameter of which was sixteen feet ; its leaves, close to 
the stem, being nearly nine inches thick. In the beginning 
of June of that year, a stem made. its appearance, resem- 
bling a head of Asparagus, of immense size, which, during 
six weeks grew at the rate of three inches a-day, and then 
gradually diminished in progress ; but not till it had attain- 
ed the elevation of tweuty-seven feet from the ground, which 
was at about the middle of Septeinber.’ The two lowest 
branches first showed flowers on the 3d of September, and 
others came out in succession from the beginning of Octo- 
ber, to the.end of November, when. they all began to lose 
their colour and to decay. There were upwards of forty 
flowering bunches, each with between three and four hun- 
dred flowers, making in all above sixteen thousand blossoms, 
As the stem grew, the leaves began to wither ; and it ap- 
pears the plant then died.” “ Its age was twenty-one years : 
the height from the earth when,in blossom. twenty-seven 
feet: the lateral branches, beginning at twelve feet from the 
ground, were in number forty-two; the lowest projecting 
two feet from the stem, and gradually diminishing to about 
a foot or nine inches in length at the top: the stalk where 
the side branches commenced was twenty inches round, or 
near seven inches,, in. diameter, eradually tapering to the 
apex: the bunches of flowers (or at least. those next the 
bottom) were from a foot to fourteen inches in breadth.” 
Although | 
