NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 141 
2. MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS ON YUCCA. 
BY WILLIAM TRELEASE. 
Yucca GIGANTEA. 
In the course of a walk through the celebrated gardens 
of José do Canto in Ponta Delegada, St. Michaels, in 
August, 1894, in company with their owner, my attention 
was attracted by a magnificent Yucca, some thirty feet 
high, and with a trunk not far from three feet in diameter, 
which at that time was covered with immense erect panicles 
of white flowers. Some few of the flowers which had fallen 
to the ground, showed the structure characteristic of t 
gloriosa,* and the leaves, which were all at a considerable 
height, though somewhat large and relatively broader than 
is usual in that species, appeared to have the usual longi- 
tudinal plication of Y. gloriosa, to which species I then 
supposed that the plant belonged. 
Unfortunately the tree was seen just on the eve of my 
departure from the Azores, so that I was unable to make a 
study of it on the spot; but my friend Captain F. A. 
Chaves was obliging enough the next summer to make for 
me the photographs which are here reproduced. Though 
in 1895 only two panicles of flowers were produced, in 
place of the many observed the preceding summer, one of 
these was cut and separately photographed, so that its 
character as well as that of the leaves, specimens of which 
(over 24 in. wide and nearly a yard long) were sent to me, 
is sufficiently illustrated. 
In the course of my conversation with Sr. do Canto, I 
asked if this tree had ever been known to fruit, knowing 
that Yucca aloifolia commonly sets fruit under cultiva- 
tion,t and that Y. gloriosa (but apparently usually by 
* Rept. Mo. Bot. Gard. 8. pl. 50. 
+ Rept. Mo. Bot. Gard. 4: 182. 
