3<3 TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



layers of cells. It is probable that the minute, almost filiform, 

 egg of the moth is carried with and between these bundles of pol- 

 len tubes as they elongate and push on into the ovarian cells 

 and among the ovules. 



As soon as fertilized the nascent fruit of the capsular Yuccas 

 (and apparently also of Clistoyucca) becomes erect and its pedicel 

 thickens and hardens, while the young fruit of Sarcoyucca re- 

 mains pendulous, as the flower was, and as afterwards the mature 

 fruit is, and its pedicel more flexible. 



The Yuccas bloom from the early summer months to the end of 

 the autumnal season. The first one in the latitude of St. Louis (all 

 cultivated plants) is T. angustijolia, which opens its flowers 

 when the roses are in full bloom, from the middle to the end of 

 May ; the true T. Jilamentosa makes its appearance next, about 10 

 or 14 days later ; then come, one after another, different forms allied 

 to the latter. Later than these, in July and August, T. aloifolia 

 unfolds its flowers, and T. gloriosa very often, in our gardens, as 

 well as on the coast of South Carolina, blooms in September and 

 even in October. 



The fruit of the Yucca, is an oval or prismatic, more or less, 

 distinctly six-angled, more or less completely six-celled pod, usually 

 with a short beak, bearing six rows of horizontal seeds. This pod 

 is either pulpy and never opens, or it is dry, and dehiscent, or it 

 is intermediate between these extremes. Some of these condi- 

 tions of the fruit were known to the older botanists ; Linnasus 

 (Syst. Nat. ed. X., 1759, n. 388) has a capsula trivalvis; Gaert- 

 ner (Fruct. II. p. 34, t. 85 ; 1791) figures and describes the fruit 

 of " T. Draconis" as bacca carnosa .... non secedens ; Nut- 

 tall, Gen. I., p. 218 ; 1818, says : capsule opening at the summit ; 

 but he mentions that of T. gloriosa as pulpy ; Endlicher (Gen. n. 

 1117; 1836) tries to reconcile the apparent discrepancies by de- 

 scribing the capsule as subbaccata, demtwi dehiscens ; Kunth, 

 Enum., and later botanists have followed Endlicher. In the Bo- 

 tanical Notes to Wislizenus' Memoir of a Tour to New Mexico, 

 etc., 1S48, p. 101, I first distinguished the Yuccas with u juiceless 

 capsules and thin seeds" from those with "succulent fruit and 

 thick seeds" Subsequent American botanists (Torrey in Bot. 

 Mex. Bound, p. 221, and especially Chapman in Southern Flora, 



