Trelease — The Mexican Fiber Agaves Known as Zapupe. 35 



tweeii Tampico aud Vera Cruz, where it is spontaneous, 

 has long been used by the Indians, and is now somewhat 

 included in the fiber plantations. 



Specimens examined: — Plantations about Tuxpam,V.C. 

 {Lesimiasse, June 1908, "zapupe silvestre" — the type, 

 and May 1908, "zapupe cimarrdn"; Deivey, 653, Feb. 

 1907, "zapupe de Sierra Chontla"). 



Agave Dewey ana n. sp. 



Leaves yellowish green, very lightly and transiently glaucous and some- 

 times transversely banded on the back, fibrous-striate in wilting, thin, 

 gradually acute. 5-10 X about 150 cm.; spine brown or occasionally some- 

 what purple-tinged, smooth, dull below, nearly straight and conical; round- 

 grooved in the lower third, 3-4X15-40 mm., at length shortly decurrent 

 on the margin: prickles similarly colored, 15-40 mm. apart in the middle, 

 reduced or wanting toward the tip, 2-3 mm. long, slender, upcurved or in- 

 flexed, their bases somewhat lenticular, the intervening thin translucent 

 margin nearly straight. Inflorescence 3-6 m. high, the upper half rather 

 densely oblong-paniculate with somewhat upcurved branches. Flowers 

 unknown. Capsules sparingly produced, (immature) ovoid-oblong, shortly 

 stipitate and beaked, 25x35 mm.: seeds 6x8-9 mm., narrow-margined. 



The cultivated green zapupe, "zapupe de Huasteca," 

 ' ' zapupe de Tantoyuca " or " zapupe verde ' ' of the region 

 between Tampico and Vera Cruz, where (unless this 

 means the preceding) it is said to have been long grown 

 by the Indians and is now being extensively planted for 

 its fiber : unknown to botanists as a wild plant, but closely 

 allied to A. ahoriginwn of the same region. 



Specimens examined: — Plantations about Victoria, 

 Tam. {Dewey, 649— iliQ type, and 648 and 650, Feb. 1907, 

 "zapupe verde"), Tuxpam,V.C. (Z)eM'e?/,(>5^?, Feb. 1907, 

 "zapupe verde"; Lespinasse, June 1908, "Tantoyuca 

 zapupe") and the island of Juana Ramirez {Vincent, 

 March 1909, "Tantoyuca"), and also cultivated at Eey- 

 nosa, Tam. {KasteUc, June 1908 — a specimen which sug- 

 gests that Agave rigida of the lower Eio Grande* may 

 possibly be this rather than A. fourcroydes). 



* See Kept. Mo. Bot. Gard. 19 : 278. (1908),—" A. rigida Coulter." 



