﻿LITERATURE OF FURCRAEA WITH SYNOPSIS OF SPECIES. 35 



craea; one set was said to have been "found growing in the 

 Scotland District," the other was perhaps from a Botanic 

 Station Garden. These were referred (as the Antigua plant 

 was later) to ''F. gigantea var. Willemeliana,'' but they seem 

 to the writer to be referable to F. tuberosa; the indentation of 

 the leaf-margin is obscured or obliterated, but from Mr, Bar- 

 ber's description (which includes a sketch of "intervals" on 

 the leaf-edge) this seems to occur in tuberosa; in many Aga- 

 vcae, indeed, such characters depend on the stage of indi- 

 vidual development. In a British Museum copy of the Hor- 

 tus Elthamensis (1732), which has colored illustrations, 

 figure 21, tab. xix. of "Aloe barbadensis mitior, laete virens 

 et splendens" is unmistakably intended, in the writer's view, 

 for Furcraea tuberosa: the text also, which contrasts this sort 

 of "Aloe" with "the common American" and the "Vera 

 Cruz" kinds, fits F. tuberosa precisely, with the single excep- 

 tion that the plant of Dillenius is credited* with a brown "acu- 

 Icus," (ultimately black), above the convolute and pungent 

 leaf-tip, which, in leaves of tuberosa at their prime, is not or- 

 dinarily observable; in individuals there is not unfrequently 

 an apparent spine, above the apparent leaf-tip, but this char- 

 acter in Furcraea generally is unsatisfactory, often transient, 

 and of little moment. In the list of names prefixed to the 

 issue with uncolorcd plates by Sherard, in which the Dil- 

 Icnian titles are reduced to Linnaean binomials, the plant, 

 which was brought to England from Barbados by "Mr. New- 

 port Merchant of London," is reduced to "Agave americana,'' 

 though the letter-press ought to have precluded this con- 

 fusion. Strictly speaking, this is an early figure of F. tube- 

 rosa, but as Commelyn's illustrations and the previous liter- 

 ature are ignored, it can hardly be said to conflict with the 

 dictum above quoted; and the like applies to Gartcnflora, i. 

 (1852) Taf. iii. p. 21 (in 0. Heer's article "Dcr Ronton Gar- 

 ten in Funchal"), which though pretty certainly based on a 

 specimen of F. tuberosa is named "gigantea" and referred by 



* Owing, possibly, to confusion with "Agave Morrisii," the young 

 leaves of which are not dissimilar. 



