312 TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



of the Gila River: fl.June and July. — The botanical history 

 of this species is similar to that of most of the larger Agaves, 

 the material for whose definition must be gathered piecemeal and 

 from many different sources. Oct. 19, 1846, a fruiting specimen 

 was collected near the "Copper Mines" by Lieut. Emory, in the 

 California expedition (see p. 310), 1. c. p. 59, now preserved in 

 the Torrey herbarium and mentioned in the Mex. Bound. Botany 

 as a short and broad-leaved form of A. Americana. In 1865 

 Dr. E. Coues sent flowerbuds from Fort Whipple, which seem to 

 belong to this species. In January, 1868, Dr. C. C. Parry, then 

 on a railroad surveying expedition, again found it and collected 

 seeds, which I distributed in Europe as A. Parry i; the young 

 plants, raised from them, are now advertised in nursery cata- 

 logues, but no description has yet been published. Then Mr. F 

 Bischoff, of Lieut. Wheeler's expedition of 1871, brought capsules 

 and seeds home. The first who, collecting foliage, flowers, and 

 fruit, enabled me to connect all these scattered fragments, was 

 Dr. J. T. Rothrock, Surgeon and Naturalist of Lieut. Wheeler's 

 Southwestern Expedition of 1874. He met with the plant in 

 "Rocky Canon" and as far north as Camp Apache in Northeast- 

 ern Arizona. Why Koch and Jacobi should have referred the 

 short notes of Torrey to a plant which they found in cultivation 

 in Europe, is unknown to me ; Jacobi's description does in nowise 

 agree with our plant, as the margin of the leaves is nearly straight 

 and not " deeply crenate," etc. 



Leaves erectish or the outer ones patulous, 10-12 inches long, 

 3-32 inches wide, somewhat concave as all Agave leaves are, ra- 

 ther abruptly acuminate and terminating in a very robust spine, 

 1 inch long, flattened above, with two sharp lateral angles and a 

 slight ridge in the middle ; from this spine a horny, brown mar- 

 gin runs down the leaf-edges for 1 inch or more and to the upper- 

 most teeth. Teeth 6-12 lines apart, comparatively small, only 

 about 1 5 lines long, straight, or slightly curved up on upper, and 

 smaller and curved back on lower part of leaf. Scape 8-12 feet 

 high, 1-2 inches thick, bearing numerous large (2 inches wide at 

 base, and twice as long, smaller upwards), triangular, closely 

 adpressed bracts, herbaceous, with scarious brown margins and 

 sharp points. Panicle itself, in well-developed plants, about 3 feet 

 long, and 1 foot in diameter, the stouter branches considerably 



