ENGELMANN NOTES ON AGAVE. 313 



flattened, % inch wide, 6 inches long ; ultimate pedicels usually 

 2-3 lines long. Flowers over 2 inches, the-perigon 12-14 lines 

 long, tube 4-4^ lines long and wide, lobe 9-9^ lines long and 2 

 wide ; stamens inserted at the base of the lobes, the inferior a lit- 

 tle lower than the. exterior ones; filaments if inches, anthers 10 

 lines long ; style often at last longer than stamens. Capsule wider 

 in proportion to its length than in any other of our species belong- 

 ing to this section, about if inches long and half as wide ; seeds 

 4 lines wide, with flat, punctulate, strongly marked reticulation, 

 visible under a strong glass. 



12. Agave Antillarum, Descourt. Mor. med. Antill. 4 tab. 

 284 (1827) : subcaulescens ; foliis late lanceolato-linearibus elon- 

 gatis, margine aculeis parvis distantibus rectis recurvisve fuscis 

 armato, spina terminali valida fusca terete basi solum anguste 

 canaliculata ; scapo sub-10-pedali ; paniculae ovatse ramis hori- 

 zontalibus, pedicellis longiusculis dense fasciculatis ; florum (au- 

 rantiacorum) ovai - io perigonio longiore, tubo late infundibiliformi 

 lobis lineari-oblongis erecto-patulis ter quaterve breviore, stami- 

 nibus basi loborum insertis longe exsertis ; capsula ovato-prisma- 

 tica cuspidata basi in stipitem brevem contracta. 



San Domingo, Parry & Wright, U. S. Expl. Exp., Feb. 1871, 

 in flower. — The unusual color of the flower and the native coun- 

 try of the plant make it almost certain that this is DescourtiPs 

 plant, and I adopt his, the oldest, name, even if Grisebach's (Flor. 

 West Ind. p. 582) suggestion should prove true, that it might be 

 identical with A. sobolifera, Salm, hort. 1834 (A. viviflara, Lam., 

 non Lin.) This plant is also reported to come from San Domingo 

 and Jamaica, but to have greenish or yellowish-green flowers 

 (Jacobi, Ag. 122) and to bear capsules as well as bulblets, whence 

 the names ; but none of our botanists seem to have observed such 

 proliferation, which in other allied Agaves and in a Fourcroya 

 were duly noticed. The measurements taken by them in San 

 Domingo of a "medium specimen" are: height of leaf-bearing 

 trunk 2 feet, length of leaf 30-36, greatest width 4V inches ; scape 

 8-10 feet high, at base 2* inches thick, length of lower branches 

 of the panicle 9, of middle 12, and upper 3 inches; nearly 100 

 flowers on the strongest branches. 



A single leaf before me is 3 feet long and 3$ inches wide, the 

 terminal spine 9 lines long, a narrow groove occupying only 1 of 



