﻿LITERATURE OF FURCRAEA WITH SYNOPSIS OF SPECIES. 39 



jet et fleury dont on fait le Tol;" finally he says the leaves of 

 the Karatas yield an excellent substitute for soap. So far as 

 the French Antilles were concerned this no doubt refers to 

 Furcraea tuherosa, or F. gigantea, and Agave antillarum, the 

 points taken from the Jamaican Penguin and the Tobago 

 "Nequametl" being literary embellishments; but unfortu- 

 nately Jacquin, in the Sel. Stirp. Am. (p. 100), quoted Marc- 

 graf's Nequametl as a synonym of his Agave cuhensis, and 

 this, taken with Labat's story, which was given currency by 

 Martius (under Fourcroya cuhensis" 1. c. p. 189), has led to 

 the perfectly erroneous supposition that Furcraea cuhensis 

 is diffused in the Lower Antilles and the northern parts of 

 South America. Labat's errors were not altogether original, 

 for Du Tcrtre (Hist, des Antilles, ii. 106, quoted by Koster, 

 Travels in Brazil, App. p. 482), had the same legend of the 

 Karatas though in a rather simpler form. Martms seems to 

 have been influenced by the "Disserta^ao sobre as plantas 

 que podem dar linhos, etc." (1810, pp. 23-26) of Arruda da 

 Camara, who describes the "Caroata assu" or "Piteira" and 

 identifies it with "Agave vivipara;'' but whether the Lm- 

 naean species is meant, or some other, is not evident. It 

 may be doubted whether the author had before him any 

 actual plant, and was not merely dealing with the Caraguata 

 guacu of the early writers. Local botanists should be able 

 to discover what De Laet's Tobago drawing represents; it 

 could hardly have been Furcraea cuhensis or F. gigantea: and 

 considerable interest attaches to the identity of the Agaveae 

 of this island, with regard to its geographical position. 



It has been suggested that F. gigantea is not really sep- 

 arable from tuherosa, but the plants at their prime appear to 

 bp readily distinguishable in the living state, though it is not 

 easy to find tangible book characters; they differ in habit, m 

 the outline of the leaf, and by the perianth; the odor of the 

 crushed leaf cannot always be observed, and but little weight 

 attaches to the leaf margin as between them. It has been 

 stated that F. gigantea has a stem, while tuherosa is compar- 

 atively stemless : this character, as with several other Agaveae, 

 is of shght value, but in point of fact old plants of tuherosa 



