30 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



able botanical name has yet been attached to any of them, 

 though it remains to be shown how far the Vera Cruz 

 fiber ascribed to Agave Vera Cruz, A. mexicana, etc., is 

 of the zapupe class. As is natural, samples of Bromelia 

 and perhaps other fibers have been called zapupe; but 

 the scanty literature of the group, based mainly on the 

 statements of Lespinasse, Dewey, Endlich and Nunn, is 

 fortunately free from serious confusion except that re- 

 sulting from the fact that few references to zapupe per- 

 tain to a single species of plant — though the "azul" is 

 most commonly meant. 



The popular names, aside from the general designation 

 ''Huasteca henequen" or "Tamaulipas henequen," ap- 

 plied to the zapupe forms are (1) "azul" or blue, (2) 

 "oimarrdn" or mountain, (3) "Estopier," the name of 

 one of the planters, (4) "Huasteca," a geographic name, 

 (5) ''San Bernardo," (6) "Sierra Chontla," a geo- 

 graphic name, (7) "silvestre" or forest, (8) "Tanto- 

 yuca," a geographic or tribal name, (9) "Tepezintla," a 

 geographic name, (10) "verde" or green, and (11) "Vin- 

 cent," after one of the planters; and to these is to be 

 added the name "ixtle" or "ixtle manso" used locally at 

 the Mirador hacienda and about Jalapa. 



As would be expected, several of these names are syn- 

 onymous with others, but five clearly distinguishable 

 forms occur: (1) the blue zapupe, "zapupe azul," "za- 

 pupe de Estopier," "zapupe de San Bernardo" or, par 

 excellence, simply "zapupe"; (2) the Tepezintla zapupe, 

 "zapupe de Tepezintla" or "zapupe de Vincent"; (3) 

 the Mirador ixtle or "ixtle manso" of the Jalapa region, 

 (not to be confused with the similarly named Yucatan 

 plant, or the miscellaneous Tampico fiber) ; (4) the wild 

 zapupe, "zapupe cimarron," "zapupe silvestre" or 

 "zapupe de Sierra Chontla"; and (5) the Tantoyuca or 

 green zapupe, "zapupe de Tantoyuca," "zapupe de 

 Huasteca" or "zapupe verde." 



These appear to be botanical species rather than cul- 

 tural varieties or races ; and in spine characters fall into 



