LILIACE^ 115 



a minute point penetrating a cavity in the base of the peduncle. Seed subglobose, 

 free, erect, with a basal hilum and a thin light red-brown coat marked by the pale 

 conspicuous ascending 2 or 3-branched raphe; embryo minute, basal, in uniform 

 horny albumen. 



PseudophoBnix with a single species inhabits the keys of southern Florida, and the 

 Bahamas. 



The generic name is in allusion to a fancied resemblance to Phoenix, a genus of 

 Palms. 



1. Pseudophoenix Sargenti, H. Wendl. 



Leaves 5-6 long, with pinnae often 18' long and V wide near the middle of 

 the leaf, becoming at its extremities not more than half as long and wide; their 

 petioles 6'-8' in length. Flovrers : spadix 3 long and 2\ wide. Fruit ripening in 

 May and June, ^'-f in diameter on a peduncle ^ long; seeds \' in diameter. 



Distribution. Florida, east end of Elliott's Key, and east end of Key Largo near 

 the southern shore, here forming a grove of 200 or 300 plants. 



Occasionally cultivated in the gardens of southern Florida. 



IV. LILIACE-53. 



(yucce.) 



Leaves, alternate, linear-lanceolate. Flowers in terminal panicles ; sepals 

 and petals nearly similar, subequal, withering-persistent ; ovary with more or 

 less deeply introduced dorsal partitions ; ovules numerous, 2-ranked in each 

 cell ; embryo subulate, obliquely placed across the seed ; cotyledon arched in 

 germination. 



Yuccse as here limited consists of two American genera, Hesperaloe, with two 

 species, low plants of Texas and Mexico, and Yucca. 



1. YUCCA, L. 



Trees, with simple or branched stems prolonged by axillary naked buds, dark 

 thick corky bark, light fibrous wood in concentric layers, and large stout horizontal 

 roots. Leaves involute in the bud, at first erect, usually becoming reflexed, abruptly 

 narrowed above the broad thickened clasping base, usually widest near the middle, 

 concave on the upper surface, involute toward the horny usually sharp-pointed apex, 

 convex and often slightly keeled toward the base on the lower surface, the margins 

 serrulate or filamentose, light or dull green. Flowers fertilized by insects and open- 

 ing for a single night, on slender pedicels in 2 or 3-flowered clusters or singly at the 

 base of the large compound panicle furnished with conspicuous leathery white or 

 slightly colored bracts, those at the base of the pedicels thin and scarious; perianth 

 cup-shaped, with thick ovate-lanceolate creamy white segments more or less united 

 at the base, usually furnished with small tufts of white hairs at the apex, those of the 

 outer rank narrower, shorter, and more colored than the more delicate petal-like 

 segments of the inner rank; stamens 6, in 2 series, free, shorter than the ovary {as 

 long in 1), white, with club-shaped fleshy filaments, obtuse and slightly 3-lobed at 

 the apex, and cordate emarginate anthers attached on the back, the cells opening 

 longitudinally, curling backward and expelling the large globose powdery pollen- 

 grains; ovary oblong, 6-sided, sessile or stalked, with nectar-glands within the par- 

 titions, dull greenish white, 3-celled, gradually narrowed into a short or elongated 



