4-0 TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



green ; segments ovate, acute, or nearly lance-ovate, the inner 

 longer and wider than the outer ones, minutely pubescent at tip 

 (which, perhaps, is meant by Elliott's "sparingly ciliate"). 

 Stamens often as long as the whole pistil, or at least as long as 

 the ovary, straight at first or only patulous, but at last mostly re- 

 curved and even variously twisted ; filaments in some forms 

 scarcely papillose, in others strongly hispid ; anthers deeply 

 emarginate at tip, stigmas narrower than the prismatic ovary and 

 much longer than wide, divided upwards and at last somewhat 

 divergent ; the ovules thinner than usually in this section, in the 

 wild flowers examined by me 0.25-0.30 mm., in cultivated ones 

 0.25-0.33 mm. thick. I have not been able to obtain the fruit, 

 which is said to be 6-angled, pulpy, and of a deep purple color, 

 by Elliott and by Nuttall, both of whom singularly enough omit 

 to describe the much more common fruit of T. aloifolia. The 

 seed which was sent to me is smaller and thinner than that of that 

 species, (5.2-6.0 mm. in the longest diameter and 1.8-2.0 mm. 

 thick) but otherwise very similar to it.— The flowering time seems 

 to be July to October, very often, in South Carolina, in autumn. 

 The cultivated plants, which I have seen, scarcely differ from 

 this form ; their flowers are sometimes larger, and either whitish 

 or cream-white, or very often externally greenish-purple ; they 

 seem to open usually in July and August, or, sometimes, later in 

 the fall. 



T. acui?iinata, Sweet, and T. obliqua, Haw., garden species, 

 the native country of which is unknown, seem to belong to the 

 typical form. 



The variety which I have distinguished as var. plicata I have 

 found under the name of T. plicata in Mr. G. Thuret's gardens 

 at Antibes near Nice, flowering in February and March ; it has 

 a trunk over 2 feet high, with thin but stiff, much folded leaves, 

 I \-2\ feet long and 2-2 \ inches wide, glaucous above, rough 

 beneath, serrulate near the base ; panicle large, flowers over 4 

 inches wide, externally tinged with brown-red ; stamens as long 

 as the ovary, which is contracted into a narrow neck, a sort of a 

 style, bearing the thicker, divaricate stigmas. 



Var. recurvifolia is the well known and commonly cultivated, 

 elegant garden form, said to come from Georgia, where Elliott 

 also seems to have seen it, but nobody apparently has found it 

 since. I cannot distinguish it from the type but by the flaccid, 



