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MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDKN. 



Baker remarked that we have no published figure of F. tuhe- 

 rosa, Aiton. He might have said that there is no figure pub- 

 hshed or unpubhshed, except the original 19 of the Hortus 

 Amstelodamensis, because the unpubhshed drawing sent to 

 Kew by Fenzl mentioned by Mr. Baker does not belong to 

 F. fuberosa: Mr. Baker himself subsequently referred this 

 plant to F. undulata, Jacobi, but in any case it was clearly 

 not F. tuberosa, Aiton. In the ''Amaryllideae," p. 200, it is 

 stated that no reliable specimens are available; but there is a 

 sheet at Kew from the Goodcnough Herbarium marked as 

 "Agave tuberosa, Hort. Kew. genus novum/' with the note 

 "This flowered for the first time in Europe at Kew October 

 and November, 1793," etc. Mr. Baker named it first " Four- 

 croya tuberosa, Ait. type, " but corrected this in pencil after- " 

 wards to ''F. gnjantea, \'entcnat." So far as the material 

 goes, the writer cannot help thinking that the earlier detei- 

 mination was correct, and that we have here the tyix" of 

 Alton's species, which is hard to distinguish in the dry state 

 from some forms of F. gigantea, Vent, though the living plant 

 should be readily distinguished. 



Stress has been laid on the odor of the flowers, but the 

 trivial name given by Linnaeus had no reference to that, but 

 to the smell from the crushed leaves of F. gigantea, which in 

 Calcutta specimens was most perceptible; as Commelyn says 

 of tuberosa, "Caeterae, quas possidet quahtatcs, cum ])riore 

 [F. gigantea] conveniunt, praeterquam quod haec Aloe non 

 foeteat." Of the preceding (Cap. xviii.) he writes "Ipsis 

 foliis succus quidam adhacret viscosus & foetidus." 



Bocrhaavc (Index Hort. Lugd. Bat. 1720) says of Her- 

 mann's plant, which is that of Commelyn's 18th chapter and 

 figure, ''Nascitur in Curasao unde fila parantur sutoribus 

 quae ibi Piet vocantes inde nomen dedcrunt plantae." Re- 

 dout.' in the "Liliacees" gives the home of F. gigantea as 

 "Curacao and S. Domingo;" the former rests no doubt on the 

 Ley den Catalogues, and the latter may be safely traced to 

 Tussac, but the species is wrongly given, for the S. Domingo 

 plant described in the " Flore des Antilles, " and afterwards 

 received through Mr. MeyerhoiT in the Berlin Garden, was, 



