﻿52 



MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



from the Herbarium, are reproduced to illustrate this mem- 

 orandum. 



F. tuberosa, Ait. fil. in Hort. Kew. cd. 2, ii. SOS— Trunk 

 in young plants inconspicuous, in old examples 3-G ft. long, 

 often decumbent, sometimes partly twisted, 5-10 in. thick' 

 succulent within. Leave^^ about 40 in a somewhat loose tuft[ 

 almost upright, or ascending, but when old refiexed, split- 

 ting, smooth on both sides, bright green, oblong-lanceolate, 

 typically, at 2 in. from the base, 6 in. broad, narrowed to 5 in. 

 at 8 in. above it; at their greatest width, that is about the 

 middle of the leaf (3| ft. from the base), about 10| in.; about 

 6i feet long but attaining 8 feet and upwards; margins to 10 

 in. from the base flat, free from prickles, or with minute re- 

 trorse teeth, which increase upwards, at the middle more or 

 less irregularly set at intervals of 0-1 in. with reddish-brown 

 prickles up to f in. high, arising from a thickened projection 

 of the leaf-border, uncinate; bases of the prickles sometimes 

 geminate by suppression of the margin-interval, which is nor- 

 nially deeply indented but in old leaves nearly straight; mar- 

 gin more or less involute above the middle of the leaf, ulti- 

 mately forming a groove one to three inches deep, devoid of 

 prickles in^ the uppermost fourteen to eighteen inches; tip 

 convolute into a blunt scarcely pungent conical acumen.* 

 Scape 15-25 feet high, the often dense oblong thyrsoidal 

 panicle reaching ten feet or more; perianth-lobes about 11 

 inch X 7 lines, greenish-white without, white bordered, shorter 

 than the germen which attains U in.; capsule oblong-ovate; 

 bulbils usually numerous, broadest at the base, sharp pointed.' 



F. cuBENsis, Haw. var. inermis. Baker in Bot. Mag 6543 

 (1881) (Fourcroya). [x] 

 See the preceding. The F. cubensis of Haworth (Syn. 

 p. 73) is not the same as F, cubensis of Ventenat; ic is true 



* In young leaves the tip of the leaf is often hardened into a false 

 spine and disarticulates; in old leaves the acumen is very often shod, as 

 it were, with a blunt horny callus. In no Furcraea, so far as the writer's 

 knowledge goes, is there ever a true fibrous terminal spine such as is 

 manifest in many other Agaveae. 



