226 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



historic r.iistn i r._ 

 Aloe Americana. -, 



44) 



Fig. 19. The First Picture. 



first introduction into the civilized 

 world, and many of them are 

 really beautiful plants; but while 

 one of them has leaves only an 

 inch long, the size of others is so 

 great as to render them unsuitable 

 for ordinary cultivation under 

 glass, and really representative col- 

 lections have been made by only 

 a few amateurs and botanical gar- 

 dens. About forty years ago a 

 taste for growing some of the 

 smaller species was fostered by 

 Belgian dealers who successfully 

 exhibited and advertised select 

 specimens of new importation, 

 some of which sold for very profit- 

 able sums; but I do not recall a 

 single one of the private collections 

 of a generation ago which is still 

 kept up, though fortunately some of the better plants have found their 

 way finally to Kew or some other botanical establishment. 



Botanists have generally agreed 

 to date their scientific naming of 

 plants from 1753, when Linnaeus 

 substituted the convenient binomial 

 for the awkward if usually terse 

 description that had been used up to 

 that time when reference was made 

 to a plant. This date, consequently, 

 begins the modern history of Agave, 

 which, some years earlier, had been 

 segregated from the African genus 

 Aloe. 



In his ' Species Plantarum/ pub- 

 lished in that year, Linnaeus de- 

 scribes only four species — one of 

 which, the ' cabuja ' of the tropical 

 mainland, belongs to a sufficiently 

 distinct genus, Furcrcea, which was 

 separated from Agave half a cen- 

 tury later. One of the remaining three is the century plant, 

 A. Americana-; another is a characteristic large species of the 

 Greater Antilles, A. vivipara; the other is an interesting little 

 plant of our own flora, with thin leaves which die down every 



Hiiius altitude ex appieYi floris quantititemedlo- 

 Cfitcrconijcipoteft. Accuratadefcriptioextatapud 

 Czfalpinum. Nosiconcmdcdinms.cuni i ncminc 

 hadenus dcpifta fucrit. > 



Althaa. 



Fig. 20. Figured by Camerarias. 



