ENGELMANN NOTES ON AGAVE. 317 



quen (Schott) or Henequen (Perrine), and distinguish, as Dr. 

 Schott reports, the Taxci (Yashki) as furnishing the best quality 

 and the Sacci (Sacqui) with the largest quantity of fibre ; Chu- 

 cumci, larger than the last, produces coarser fibre ; Babci has 

 fine fibre but in smaller quantity ; Citamci, with small narrow 

 leaves and poor fibre, stands probably nearest to the wild plant. 

 Dr. Perrine mentions another variety, Istle, evidently the Ixtli 

 of Karwinski, as furnishing a fine fibre called Pita. These plants 

 yield a return of leaves when four or five years old, and may last 

 50 or 60 years under proper management ; the flowering scape is 

 cut off as soon as 4 feet high, when, evidently, axillary branches 

 continue the growth of the plant, which is thus kept so long 

 alive by being prevented from flowering. 



The trunk of the wild plant of Yucatan — which I refer with 

 little doubt to Miller's old A. rigida — is 1-2 feet high, leaves 

 1 \-2 feet long and as many inches wide, contracted above the 

 broader base and widest about the middle ; lateral teeth f or even 

 1 inch apart, mostly straight, from a broad base 1-2 lines long, 

 rather unequal, with smaller ones interspersed, dark brown ; ter- 

 minal spine 1 inch long, if lines in diameter, straight, or often 

 somewhat twisted, terete, scooped out at base but not channelled, 

 dark red-brown, a dark corneous margin extending down the leaf- 

 edge for several inches and bearing the uppermost teeth. Scape 

 12-15 feet high ; flowers pale yellowish-green, 2i-2j inches long, 

 perigon 16, tube 6-7, lobes 9-10 lines long; stamens inserted 

 about the middle of the tube, "blood-red upwards," 1 inch longer 

 than the perigon ; anthers 10-102 lines long ; styles at last as long 

 as stamens. 



A. Ixtli, which in 1872 flowered in the gardens of the late Mr. 

 Thuret at Antibes, is entirely similar, flowers of the same dimen- 

 sions, anthers a little larger ( 1 1 \ lines long) ; capsules, which 

 grow with the bulbs on the same panicle, oval, over 2 inches 

 long, ii wide, very short stipitate ; seeds uncommonly large, 4^ 

 lines high, with a ventral hilum (in many other Agaves I find 

 the hilum more basal, a character which may be of some value). 

 I believe this is the first time that the flowers of the Ixtli have 

 been described ; they identify the plant with the old A. rigida, 

 or at least the above-described Chelem. A. Karivinskii, Zucc. 

 is probably the same thing. 



