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124 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
Kew, according to Mr. W. Watson, has flowered eleven 
times and now has a stem five feet high. We have the 
species in the Botanic Garden under the names both of A. 
Sartorii and A. Noackii. The one bearing the latter name 
has a clearly marked band down the center of the leaves 
while in the other plant the leaves are scarcely if at all 
banded. The specimen marked A. Sartorii has long been 
growing in the Botanic Garden and flowered for the first 
time in February and March, 1897. The plant is said to 
be 15 years old. It differs from the description of A. 
Sartorit in its narrower hardly banded leaves, shorter spike, 
and smaller flowers. A good habit sketch and detail draw- 
ing is to be found in the Botanical Magazine, t. 6292 (1877). 
This is said to be the only species known which develops 
its inflorescence from lateral buds. ‘The specimen in the 
Botanic Garden which recently flowered, is now sending 
out two new shoots. It may be described as follows :— 
Stem 1 foot high, clothed with old leaves; leaves 15 to 20, 2 feet long, 
1 to 1} inches broad near the middle, slightly narrowed toward the broad 
(3 in.) and thick (1 inch) base; end spine weak; margin with minute 
brown teeth; peduncle 24 feet long, glaucescent, bracteate, strongly 
curved at top; bracts resembling those of A. attenuata, the lower ones 4 
inches long, serrulate, pale green and long-attenuate; spike a foot long, 
each bract subtending 2 flowers; flowers very small; ovary 4 lines long; 
tube of perianth 3 lines long, lobes 4 to 5 lines long, greenish-yellow; 
stamens and style twice as long as perianth; filaments inserted near the 
top of the tube. 
AGAVE ATTENUATA. 
A magnificent specimen of this stately agave bloomed at 
the Washington Garden early in 1897. This is the first 
time the species has flowered here, and so far as I can 
learn the first time also in this country. The plant was 
bought in Such’s Nursery by Mr. Smith more than twenty 
years ago. The plant was nearly two months in develop- 
ing its spike and was in bloom nearly three months. Only 
a few capsules set seed, and the plant has since died. 
This species never produces but a single flowering spike 
and is therefore monocarpic. It sends off many little 
