﻿LITERATURE OF FURCRAEA WITH SYNOPSIS OF SPECIES. 57 



nothing can be gained by too summary revision of the nomen- 

 clature. 



F. STRiCTA, Jacobi in Abhandl. Schles. Gesellsch. 1869, p. 171. 



From the description this might be the elegans of Todaro, 

 or even Tnacrophylla, Hook, fil., but the only specimens that 

 come near it are those of Purdie from the Magdalena httoral 

 discussed under the preceding. Jacobi's is too small in its 

 proportions for normal macrophylla, and the geographical 

 range of this moreover is uncertain. It seems hopeless to 

 identify Jacobi's plant at the present day, and the writer 

 therefore has included elegans in the list of known species, as 

 it is at least supported by an elaborate description and fig- 

 ure. In the Kew Herbarium there is a noteworthy speci- 

 men from the Rottlerian Herbarium, taken by Klein on Oct. 

 25th, 1811, from the Mission Garden at Tranquebar in S. 

 India, which has quite the leaf of elegans or strida as de- 

 scribed by their authors; the flowers accompanying are un- 

 doubtedly those of a Furcraea, but the leaf, which seems to 

 have a terminal spine, is hardly distinguishable from that of 

 Agave Cantala, Roxb. It seems not impossible that the Four- 

 croea Cantala of Ha worth was suggested by this or a similar 

 example, taken with Linnaeus' citation under his "vivipara" 

 of Rumpf's fig. 109 in vol. v. of the Herb. Amb., which is 

 A. Cantala, along with Commelyn's "polygona," a quite dif- 

 ferent species. 



F. VALLECULATA, Jacobi in Abhandl. Schles. Gesellsch. 1869, 

 p. 175. 



Sent from Kew to Jacobi as " Selloa," but evidently some- 

 thing different, possibly the S. Brazilian plant depicted 

 by Wettstein (see "F. gigantea," Wettstein, non Ventenat, 

 above). Until we know more of the South American forms 

 it would be inexpedient to exclude the name altogether. 



F. (Fourcroya) vivipara, p. 587, Gard. Chron. 1869. 



This was probably, from the indications, F. tuberosa, Ait. 

 but it does not appear by whom it was exhibited, and the 



