ENGELMANN NOTES ON THE GENUS YUCCA. 



43 



The flowers vary from 2 to over 4 inches in expansion, and, if 

 I may judge from the dried specimens, are remarkable for the 

 unusually narrow, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate segments of the 

 perigon, 1 3-2 or even z\ inches long, and about \ as wide, and 

 conspicuously pubescent at tip ; in the Mexican forms I find the 

 segments more ovale and of the ordinary shape of most Yucca 

 flowers, and only \\-\\ inches long. The very slightly papillose 

 filaments, as long as the ovary and erect in the bud, soon become 

 recurved-hooked. The prismatic ovary terminates in a slender, 

 short or longer, style, crowned by deeply divided strongly bilobed 

 stigmas. I find the ovules invariably thicker (0.4-0.5 mm.) than 

 in any of the foregoing species. 



The fruit is a pulpy cylindric, or rather indistinctly 6-sided, 

 somewhat sulcate and 3-lobed, strongly rostrate berry 3-4 inches 

 long, about 1 inch thick, of a bitter-sweetish pleasant taste, much 

 eaten by the Indians, who roast them and peal the acrid rind off. 

 Seeds 6-7 mm. in the longest diameter, and 3 mm. thick, very 

 similar to those of Y. aloifolia but with the back less rounded. 



Yucca canaliculata, Hooker, Bot. Mag. 86, t. 5201, i860, 

 described from a plant cultivated at Kew, with a stem 1-2 feet 

 high, leaves 2 feet long, concave, semi-cylindric, rough on back, 

 very probaby is not different from our plant ; the flowers, in a 

 peduncled pyramidal panicle, 4 or 5 feet high, are described as 

 sulphur-yellow, but are stated by Baker in Gard. Chr. 1. c to be 

 cream-white. — A specimen in Mr. Henry Shaw's Missouri Bo- 

 tanical Garden, thus labeled, flowered in April, 1872 ; its trunk 

 is 4 feet high, the leaves 22-3 feet long, panicle 2 feet long, \\ 

 feet wide, very densely flowered ; flowers 3-31 inches wide, seg- 

 ments ovate acute, outer 8-9, inner ones 9-1 1 lines wide; fila- 

 ments strongly recurved even when the flower has barely opened ; 

 anthers very slightly notched above, with a bunch of white articu- 

 lated hair, corresponding with the hair at the tip of the perigon. 



Yucca glauca. Sims, as understood by Baker and figured in 

 Refug. bot. v. t. 315, and Y exigua, Baker, ib. t. 314, which can 

 scarcely be distinguished from it, are classed with the acaulescent 

 entire-leaved Yuccas, though the former bears a few fibres ; 

 their fruit, in Europe unknown, may possibly be capsular, of 

 which more at the proper place. Both are characterized by 

 the conical, attenuated stigma. 



Y. orchioides, Carriere, Rev. Hort. 1861, p. 369, t. 89, as 



