we pee 
46 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
AGAVE SHAW Engelmann, Trans. Acad. St. Louis. 3: 314, 
870. pl. 2-3, 579. pl. 4, 1875; Bot. Works. 311, 315. 
ff.— Gartenflora. 25:155; 26:164. pl. 905.— Belg. 
Hort. 1887: 93.— Hamburg. Gart. Zeit. 1877 > 376.— 
Baker, Gard. Chron. n. s. 7: 717; Handbook Amaryllid. 
172; Kew Bull. 1892:3 and Add. Ser. 2: 219.— Pea- 
cock, List. 2.— Orcutt, West Amer. Scientist. 4: 68; 
7:96.— Palmer, Amer. Journ. Pharm. 50: 588.— Ter- 
racciano, Primo Contributo. 49.— Ricasoli, Utilita dei 
Giardini d’ Aclimazione. 9.—Nicholson, Dict. 1: 41; Dict. 
Prat. 1: 86.—[Handbook] Mo. Bot. Gard. 1893. front- 
ispiece.— Kew Hand List Tend. Monocot. 121.—Rose in 
Bailey, Cyclop. 1: 34.—Cactus Journ. 2; 181. f.—Segura, 
El Maguey. 4 ed. 71.—Miiller, Bot. Zeit. Abt. I. 67: 94, 
113, 135. 
Agave sp. Harwood, New Cr. in Plant life. 163. f- 
A. Schawii Simon, Cat. [1900]: 16. 
A. Shawi Menand, Cat. Pl. Albany. 20.—L. DeSmet, Cat. 10:35; 
11:9.—DeSmet Fréres, Cat. 25:9.— Gardening Ill. 15:21. 
Cespitose, shortly caulescent (scarcely 1 m.), leafy throughout. 
Leaves smooth, green, rather glossy, ovate or lance-ovate, acuminate, 
openly concave, 6-12 20-50 em., stifily erect-spreading: spine acicular, 
flexuous, decidedly reddish, 3-6 >< 20-40 mm., very openly grooved 
almost to the end, long-decurrent: prickles at first glossy garnet, 
10-25 mm. apart, very large, often 10-15 mm. long, variously curved 
or even hooked and following the leaf convexity, elongated-triangular, 
somewhat abruptly widened to about 10 mm. at base, the intervening 
often continuously horny margin rather repand. Inflorescence about 
3 m. high, the upper third or less ovoid-paniculate: scape stout: bracts 
deltoid, subimbricated, appressed: branches not very numerous, stout, 
moderately long, nearly horizontal, subsimple or very shortly tripar- 
tite with almost capitate bracted clusters: pedicels very short, much 
thickened in fruit. Flowers greenish yellow, slightly fetid, 70-90 mm. 
long: ovary 30-40 mm. long, subfusiform: tube openly conical, 15-20 
mm. deep: segments attenuate from a wide base, about 8 X 20 mm., 
more or less equaling the tube and half as long as the ovary: filaments 
inserted about the middle of the tube, 55-60 mm. long and nearly 
thrice as long as the segments. Capsules oblong, 20-25 < 50-70 mm., 
strongly beaked but scarcely stipitate, with unusually thick exocarp 
surrounding a papery core: seeds 7X 8-9 mm. 
Coast of extreme southwestern California and adjacent 
Lower California.—Shawii,—Henry Shaw, founder of the 
