HECHTIA arcentea. 
Native of Mexico. 
’ Nat. Ord. Brometracea#.—Tribe Pitcatrniex. 
~ Genus Hecutia, Klotzsch ; (Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. iii. p. 667.) 
Hecut1a argentea; acaulis, foliis perpluribus dense rosulatis ensiformibus 
_Tigide coriaceis recurvatis utrinque dense persistenter argenteo-lepidotis 
~e basi ad apicem acuminatum sensim attenuatis aculeis marginalibus 
magnis corneis pallidis, pedunculo elongato, foliis bracteiformibus multos 
_ ovato-lanceolatis integris scariosis adpressis, floribus in glomerulos multis _ 
J 
racteis floriferis ovatis brunneis scariosis flori subzquilongis, sepalis 
: Biakioves sessilos aggregatis, bracteis primariis parvis ovatis scariosis, 
- ovatis acutis, petalis oblongis obtusis albis calyce vix longioribus, floribus 
_ femineis ovario ovoideo, stigmatibus tribus sessilibus falcatis, staminibus 
Ss rudimentariis. f es 
H. argentea, Hort. Beaucarne; K. Koch Wochenschrift, 1864, p. 176. Baker 
tn Bot, Mag. sab t. 6554; Handb. Bromel. p. 139. , 
: 
Hechtia is distinguished from all the other genera of 
Bromeliacee by its small white subunisexual flowers. . 
About ten species are now known, all of which inhabit — . 
Mexico and the Southern United States, and can be easily 
grown in a cool conservatory. The present plant, with its 
dense tufts of persistent silvery leaves, is the most striking 
of all of them, and often attracts the attention of the 
visitors to the’ Cactus House at Kew, where this same 
plant has lived for at least a quarter ofa century. It grows 
slowly, and flowers but rarely. - It flowered first in 1870, 
and the present drawing was partly made then, and was 
finished in 1895. The first notice I can find of the plant 
is of its being exhibited by M. Beaucarne at the Inter- 
national Horticultural Exhibition at Brussels in 1864, 
There are no wild specimens in the Kew Herbarium. 
Descr.— Leaves very numerous, forming a dense sessile 
rosette, recurved, ensiform, acuminate, rigidly coriaceous, 
narrowed gradually from the base to a long point, per- 
sistently silvery on both surfaces, reaching a length of two 
or three feet, armed with copious pungent, pale, horny, 
Fesrvary Ist, 1896, 
Ge 
