THE AGAVES OF LOWER CALIFORNIA. 
BY WILLIAM TRELEASE. 
In the spring of 1910, Dr. J. N. Rose, of the United 
States National Museum, sent me for determination eight 
specimens of Agave brought back from Lower California 
in 1905 by Messrs. E. W. Nelson and E. A. Goldman, of the 
Bureau of Biological Survey of the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, on their return from a venturesome 
and trying reconnaissance of the peninsula, of which Mr. 
Nelson has recently published an interesting illustrated ac- 
count.t Other tasks prevented me from more than casu- 
ally examining this material until midsummer of 1911, 
when it was subjected to critical study, including a care- 
ful examination of the general literature of Agave and of 
specimens representing the groups to which the Lower Cali- 
fornian species belong or with which they might be com- 
pared. On the completion of this study I was further ob- 
liged by Dr. Rose with fourteen specimens which he him- 
self had collected in the early part of 1911, under the aus- 
pices of the United States National Museum and the New 
York Botanical Garden, at landings effected during a cruise 
of the U. S. Steamer “Albatross” about the peninsula. An 
additional specimen collected by him in 1897, and twelve 
other sheets from the National Herbarium, were also placed 
in my hands subsequently, by Dr. Rose. The conclusions 
as to earlier-published species have been confirmed or cor- 
rected and the descriptions brought into camparability with 
those now first published, through the courtesy of Professor 
H. M. Hall and Mr. T. S. Brandegee, of the University of 
California—the latter of whom made extensive Lower Cali- 
fornian collections in 1889, 1890 and 1892, on which he 
has published,? who have obligingly sent me for examina- 
tion twenty-two peninsular specimens including the types 
- 1 National Geographic Magazine. 223443. May 1911. 
2 Proc. California Academy of Sciences. ii. 22117, Nov. 12, 1889; 
and ii. 8:108, July 14, 1891 and 218, Nov. 10, 1892. 
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