﻿50 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



prove perfectly distinct, and if finally established must re- 

 ceive a fresh name as it probably is not the "Commelini" of 

 Salm-Dyck, and is certainly distinct from no. 19 of the Hort. 

 Amstelodamensis. It is very difficult to say now what the 

 . types at Dyck of "F. gigantea" and "F. tuberosa" may have 

 . been, and on those depends the identity of F. Commelyni, 

 Kunth, for Jacobi's "tuberosa" is the Dyck plant, and his 

 views on "gigantea" were based largely on Salm Dyck's; of 

 "gigantea" he had never seen a flowering specimen, and his 

 description, in so far as it is original, indicates "cubensis var. 

 inermis" of Baker rather than the true gigantea. It must be 

 remembered that the "cubensis" of Salm-Dyck and Jacobi 

 was not Ventenat's cubensis. The former supposed the plant 

 of Jacquin to be the var. yS of Alton's tuberosa, which is 

 " geminispina" of Jacobi,— the Dyck "tuberosa" from the de- 

 scription being somewhat different; what it may have been 

 must be left for the present, but it could hardly have been 

 genuine tuberosa, Ait. fil. in any case. Jacobi's tuberosa, so 

 far as the leaves go, was taken from the Dyck "tuberosa" 

 but the inflorescence was described from a different example, 

 which Jacobi afterwards propounded (Abhandl. ScHles. Ge- 

 ' sellsch. 1869, pp. 168, 169) as a distinct species named "F. 

 Upsiensis." In the synonymy under F. Commelyni, no. 19 

 of the Hort. Amstelod. is given by Jacobi as equivalent to 

 A. Commelini of Salm-Dyck, but in the text he argues that 

 Salm-Dyck was mistaken on this head, and that Commelyn's 

 no. 19 should rather be identified with F. tuberosa, Ait. 

 Under F. cubensis he cites F. tuberosa, Ait. var. i3 though he 

 had already quoted "Willdenow Sp. PI. p. 194, F. tuberosa 

 /3 spinis duplicibus" for his own " geminispina" ; whereas 

 Willdenow's "Agave tuberosa" is avowedly a mere extract 

 from Alton, the sole species known to Willdcnow himself 

 having been the plant named in his Herbarium "Agave vivi- 

 para" which, so far as can be judged, was F. gigantea, Vcn- 

 tcnat. The fact is that F. cubensis was, and evidently is 

 still, rare in collections, and but scantily represented by 

 dried specimens, if indeed in the older herbaria there were 

 any specimens at all. 

 The true gigantea also probably is seldom reared in Europe, 



