98 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
less eaten by the mocking birds, and many seeds removed, 
yet by far the larger portion of the fruit with its contained 
seeds usually remains still hanging on the old fruit cluster. 
The pulp of the fruit gradually dries up and shortly but 
little remains of the heavy pulpy fruit but a light mass of 
seeds cemented together by the dried up pulp. The break- 
ing of the epidermis and eating here and there on a fruit 
by the mocking birds greatly hastens this drying. As the 
fruits dry they pass the stage when birds aid in their dis- 
semination and now a secondary method of local dissem- 
ination begins to act. 
As the lower fruits of the cluster in Yucca alotfolia 
reach maturity, one or more, seldom two or even three, 
lateral buds, start up near the base of the peduncle and pro- 
long the growth of the stem. A single bud soon simulates 
the continuation of the main axis. Several buds form a 
branched trunk. 
In every case examined the bud or buds appear to develop 
from the axil of a leaf about one series below the inflores- 
cence, and in its development the bud quite uniformly splits 
the base of the leaf which is directly above it. This is some- 
what at variance with the observations of Dr. Mellichamp * 
who found the bud of alotfolia to spring from exactly the 
uppermost axil, at the base of the inflorescence. 
The new rapidly growing shoot, which develops from 
this bud, grows up within the circle of mature leaves beside 
the old fruit cluster (Plates 45 and 46); which is 
pushed to one side by the growth of this secondary branch, 
which in turn bears an inflorescence. 
Whether the inflorescence of Yucca is truly terminal, 
morphologically speaking, and the bud lateral, I have not 
yet been able to determine. Engelmann f speaks of the 
inflorescence of Yucca as terminal; and Trelease mentions 
* Quoted by Dr. Engelmann in his ‘‘ Notes on the Genus Yucca.’’ 
Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci. III. (1873), p. 22. 
+ Engelmann, Geo., ‘‘ Notes on the Genus Yucca,” p. 25. Reprinted 
in “‘ The Botanical Works of Geo. Engelmann,”’ p. 282, 
