54 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
were made. For twenty days after November 16th, this 
averaged two and three-fourths inches per day. After that 
its average increase gradually lessened, and more of its 
strength was used in the development of the flower buds. 
Flowers began to open the first week in January, and the 
last ones opened the second week in February. The plant 
matured an abundance of fruit before the middle of June 
and the leaves were then seen to be rapidly dying off. 
After the great expenditure of energy displayed in pro- 
ducing flowers and fruit, the vitality is usually exhausted. 
The plants generally send out suckers or offsets, and then 
quickly die and give place to the next generation. This, 
however, is not an invariable rule. The species bearing 
annual leaves, may bloom annually, and Nicholson’s Dic- 
tionary of Gardening states that A. Sartorii does. A 
plant of A. Ghiesbrechtii which bloomed in this garden 
three years ago, but which formed no fruit, still shows no 
signs of decay. A. Engelmanni, named and described by 
Dr. Trelease,* bloomed here in 1890, and lived until the 
summer of 1894. 
A plant here named A. heteracantha by Mr. Baker of 
Kew, was raised from seed sent to the Garden about 
seventeen years ago. This never suckers like our A. 
Lechuguilla, but is strongly caulescent. Its offsets or 
branches of the main stem crouch rather closely to the 
ground, giving a straggling effect to the whole. Many 
new buds are now starting also from the axils of older 
leaves. This plant bloomed here for the third time in 
January, 1892. It has a very healthy appearance and is 
now sending up flowering stalks from two of the side 
branches. 
A correspondent of the Gardener’s Chronicle f states in 
substance that mostly all of the forty-eight American Aloes 
that bloomed in the gardens of T. A. Dorrien Smith, Esq., 
* Third Annual Report, Missouri Botanical Garden, 1892, 167, Pl. 
55, 56. 
+ June 1877, 820. 
