quoted. It is this, too, that is so admirably illustrated by Mr. 

 Bateman by au interesting vignette-landscape in his splendid ' Or- 

 chidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala' (under t. 17), with the quo- 

 tation : — 



" Unde nil majus generatur ipso, 

 Nee viget quidquam simile, aut secundum;" 



and with the further remark : — " The stately plant here repre- 

 sented is Fourcroya longceva, one of the most marvellous pro- 

 ductions of the vegetable world. It belongs to the family of 

 Amaryllidacea, and has the habit of a gigantic Yucca, its stem 

 being frequently fifty feet high, and its flower-spike forty more ! 

 It was originally discovered on Mount Tanga, in Oaxaca, at an 

 elevation of ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. Mr. 

 Skinner has also met with it on the high mountain-ridges in the 

 interior of Guatemala. Plants of the species exist in our nur- 

 series, but, contrary to expectation, it seems to suffer severely 

 from the cold and changes of our climate." 



With us and in the Regent's Park Garden, the temperature of 

 a common greenhouse is sufficient for it ; but the largest of our 

 plants in cultivation are of course but pigmies in comparison with 

 the height on its native mountains. At the time our drawing 

 was made the specimen was past perfection (it has died after 

 flowering), and we have thought it best to take our representa- 

 tion of the entire plants (on the extremely reduced scale) from 

 Karwinski and Zuccarini's figures of the native plants. The 

 flowers and analysis are from the recent specimen kindly com- 

 municated by Mr. Sowerby. 



Descr. Theplant which produced the flowers here represented 

 was about fifteen feet high, including the flowering panicle, but 

 we learn from travellers in Mexico and Guatemala that the stem 

 alone there attains a height of forty and fifty feet, perfectly erect, 

 straight, cylindrical, scarred transversely, terminated with a mag- 

 nificent crown of leaves two to three feet long, coriaceo-carnose, 

 from a very broad base, narrow, ensiform, very acuminate, with 

 more the habit of those of some Yucca than of Fourcroya or 

 Agave; the surface above is quite smooth, beneath it is finely 

 striated, and the striae and margin are rough with minute cal- 

 lose sharp points. These leaves are densely crowded, upper ones 

 suberect, the lower ones are closely reflexed upon the stem. 

 Scape terminal, for its whole length (said sometimes to equal forty 

 feet!) forming a pyramidal much-branched panicle. Flowers 

 bracteated at the base. Bracteas small, ovate, acuminate, about 

 the length of the very short pedicel. Tube of the perianth (in- 

 terior ovary) three-quarters of an inch long, subcylindrical, glan- 

 dulose-pubescent; the limb spreading two to two and a half 



