﻿MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



seem in most cases to develop a stout, often twisted or partly 

 decumbent, caudex up to five feet long or more. F Lin- 

 dem has a usually straighter, somewhat slighter trunk' with 

 more numerous leaves, arranged in a more symmetrical and 

 closer spiral; the leaf is rather narrower in proportion to its 

 length stiffer, with the margin firmer and prickles less irreg- 

 ular ; the under surface of the leaf moreover is rougher- the 

 inflorescence is not known to the writer and in its absence 

 Lindem seems doubtfully distinct from Selloa. F qinantea 

 tuberosa ^nd Selloa ^v. perfectly distinct from F. cuhensis, 

 which should probably be placed in a group by itself and 

 apart from the ''Giganteae." The confusion has been in- 

 creased by Jacobi's having cited F. iuherosa, Ait /3 under F 

 ci^Ws although he had already quoted for his ''oemm- 

 spirm {i. e. tuberosa) " Willdenow Sp. Plant, p 194 which 

 is merely a quotation from the first edition of the Ilortus 

 Kewensis, concerning the second sort of ^' Aqave tuberosa " 

 Jacobi notes that he had never seen a plani answering io 

 Jacqum s description of Agave cubensis, unless perhaps one in 

 an Exhibition at Amsterdam, and that, from the description 

 does not seem to have been really Furcraea cubensis which as 

 accurately said by Jacquin, has the leaf margin "ciliato- 

 spmose as against "dentato-spinose" in the language of the 

 older botanists. The leaf of the true cubensis is distinct in 

 color, te^turc^, thickness, outline and by the margin from all 

 known Furcraeas hut the doubtful 'Udbispimt/' being more 

 like that of certam Eu-Agaves, notably the young state of 

 Agave Wightii, Drummond and Prain (see p. 27 above) When 

 our notes on the naturalized Agaveae of the I Jast Indies were 

 sent to the press we had not seen AVright's Cuban specimens 

 or Barbers Antigua tuberosa, so that references in that 

 memoir to Furcraea cubensis, and F. Commelyni must be 

 taken accordingly; it seems possible that some of the " Maur- 

 itius hemp" now grown in the Mascarenes and in S. India is 

 really Furcraea tuberosa. 



About twenty species of Furcraea have received names of 

 varying authority but of this number only about ten can be 

 said to be established, and of these F. elegans, Hort. Panorm 



