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MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



tius (Bcitrag zur Nat. and Lit. Gesch. der Agavoen, 1855, pp. 

 9-13) has discussed the early accounts very iuhy, pointing 

 out that in Oviedo's earhest work (pubhshed 152G); and in 

 the first edition of the "Coroiiica/' (Seville 1535), there is no 

 mention of the Maguey. Oviedo's notes on "Cabuya" and 

 "Henequen" were promptly published, but Maguey re- 

 mained in manuscript until 1851, when the uncompleted 

 portion was first published by the Madrid Academy, and this 

 has obviously helped to keep up the impression that our 

 knowledge of the Agaveae and the name "Maguey" orig- 

 inated from the continent of America, whereas, even if the 

 later date which the writer has ado^jted for Peter Martyr's 

 mention* be taken, it is certain that the Maguey was first met 

 with in the Islands. Martins observes that the dedication of 

 the first " Decade " bears date October, 1516, — that is before 

 the discovery of Mexico. 



Oviedo speaks of the Maguey of the Antilles from his own 

 knowledge; what he says of Araya and the Maguey of the 

 mainland was from hearsay apparently. Araya is a port in 

 what is now \'enezucla, at the western extremity of a long 

 narrow peninsula which, running parallel to the coast lying 

 east of Cumana, forms the deep inlet marked in Keith John- 

 stone's Royal Atlas (1898) as the Gulf of Cariaco. 



The "Maguey" Indians do not seem to be recorded in that 

 neighborhood by modern writers, but a "Mangue" nation or 

 confederacy was at one time in the ascendant in the country 

 between Yucatan and the Northwestern Andes. It is shown 

 by Don An. Alfaro (Boletin de laSociedad Nac. de Agricultura 

 [Costa Rica] no. 6, Aug. 25, 1906) that in 1529 Oviedo vis- 

 ited the Gulf of Nicoya (on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica), 

 where he witnessed (and afterwards described) the prepara- 

 tion of cordage from two plants, which he calls "Henequcn" 

 and "Cabuya," the Cabuya, from the descriptions, being 

 evidently a Furcraea. Mr. T. A. Sprague, F.L.S., has most 

 kindly placed at the writer's disposal his collection of works on 



* Decades, of Peter Martyr (translated In Hakluyt's Voyages, 1598), 

 Repr. Lond. 1812. Dec. iii. Cap. 7 [p. 28!) Repr.] and Cap. 9 [p. 299 

 Repr.]. 



