~ 
The compound spike of flowers upon the column-like perfectly 
straight peduncle is remarkable for its size; the large full yellow 
(but inclining to green) flowers and the copious bracteas turning 
brown or black in age. We can only represent a small portion 
of the flowering head in our Plate of the natural size. This plant 
is called Cardon and Puya in Chili, where the soft substance of 
the stem is used for corks and bungs: the flowers yield a remedy 
for hernia, and the Indians use the spines of the leaves for fish- 
hooks. 
Descr. Stem, or caudex, four feet high, flexuose, twelve inches in 
circumference, and nearly of the same size throughout: our plant 
bears two nearly opposite branches ; these are nearly of the same 
size as the stem, horizontal or deflexed, and flexuose or rather 
tortuose, and the whole stem and branches are cicatrized with 
the scars of the fallen leaves, or scaly with the bases that yet 
remain of the leaves. eaves in tufts at the apex of the main 
stem and branches, two to three, rarely four feet long, spreading 
in all directions; the lower ones recurved; all of them from a 
broad sheathing base, sword-shaped or linear-subulate, gradually 
tapering into a long narrow point, canaliculate, glaucous, minutely 
and compactly furfuraceous beneath, and almost white, the mar- 
gins rather distantly beset with strong curved or uncinate subu- 
Jate spines; those in the superior half of the leaf invariably 
pointing upwards: those in the lower half pointing downwards, 
except at the very base near the point of attachment, where they 
are irregular. From the apex of the main stem a column-like 
peduncle arises, quite straight, four feet and a half long, four 
inches in circumference, hoary with furfuraceous down, and beset 
with many deflexed, rather large, ovate, hoary, long-pointed 
bracts, eventually turning black, leafy below. Spike terminal, 
compound or subpaniculate, throwing out side branches, whose 
lower flowers are more or less pedicellate, many-flowered, copi- 
ously bracteated ; 4racteas ovate, acuminate, pale green, downy, 
black in age, at first imbricated over the flower-buds, then 
spreading. Flowers large, mostly sessile. Sepals three, erecto- 
appressed, lanceolate, more or less acuminate, greenish, downy 
externally. Petals slightly twisted, obovato-oblong, four times 
larger than the sepals, deep greenish or sulphur-yellow, with a 
depression, but no scale, at the base within. Stamens six, erect, 
shorter than the petals. Anthers oblong-sagittate, yellow. Ovary 
oblong-ovate, three-furrowed, free. Sfyle rather thick, as long 
as the stamens. Stigma trifid, slightly twisted. 
Fig. 1. Petal :—wnat. size. 
