346 
deep shiny black, as duly noted by Philip Miller; further, in 
A. lurida they are about half the size of the side prickles of 
A, Vera-Cruz if compared at the same stage of development. 
The next species that was brought to Europe seems to have been 
the true A. americana of Linné l., ed. i., vol. i, p. 323), 
which is figured in Andrews’ Repository, vii., t. 433 (numbered by 
an error * 438”), In Bot. Mag., t. 3654, there is a good representa- 
tion of the variegated form of this species which is that most 
commonly in cultivation. This is a hardier kind than A, Vera- 
Cruz, though specimens of both, and of yet another species, live 
through the summer outside the Temperate House at Kew; 
A. americana has flowered in the open as far north as Aberdeen- 
shire and in Sweden, In the south of England it is nearly if not 
quite hardy, A. lurida on the contrary seems not to endure the 
climate of any part of these islands. : 
The third species just mentioned is perhaps the comparatively 
rare Huagave described by Miller at p. 148 of his “ Figures” (and 
depicted in plate cexxii.), which was possibly the “4. Virginia” of 
the 8th edition of the Gardeners’ Dictionary, and is certainly 
A. Milleri of Haworth (Synopsis, p. 71). This is very easily 
mistaken, when not flowering, for A. americana, but the compara- 
tively narrow end-spine marks it sufficiently ; the leaf moreover 
has a different tint from that of A. americana. 
The native homes of A. americana, A. Milleri and A. lurida are 
quite unknown ; that of A. Vera-Cruz is probably to be sought on 
the eastern scarp of Central America. It seems not impossible 
that it may be the Zapupe silvestre of the tract between Vera-Cruz 
and Tampico (see Trelease, in Trans. Ac. St. Louis, xviii, p. 34, 
under A. aboriginum). Another species, which was early brought 
to Holland from the West Indies and well known to botanists and 
horticulturists of the 17th and 18th centuries as “ Aloe sobolifera,” 
was for a long time lost to science, but it is very probably the 
common species of Jamaica brought to notice by Sir Daniel Morris, 
and now represented in the Succulent House at Kew under the 
name of A, Morrisii, doubtfully distinct from the A. Antillarum of 
Descourtilz (Fl. Ant., iv. p. 239, t. 284). This species belongs to 
a group readily distinguished by the bright yellow colour of the 
blossoms ; the leaves of A. Morrisii have a different consistency 
from those of the americana group, while the side prickles are 
comparatively minute and set far more closely. 
It should here be noted perhaps that the real A. americana has 
no merits whatever except horticulturally. Its fibre is wretched ; 
its juice does not form a substitute for soap, and it is emphatically 
not the plant from which the “ Pulque” of Central America is 
extracted. <A fine example of one of the chief Pulque-producing 
species is to be seen near the west entrance of the Succulent House 
at Kew, labelled A. atrovirens ; it has recently transpired that this 
may not be true atrovirens of Karwinski, and it should perhaps be 
named A. cochlearis, Jacobi. 
_ The true lurida of Aiton (as distinguished from the Vera-Cruz 
of Miller, which he was unfortunately led to bracket with it as a 
“variety” of one species) seems to flower less readily than any. of 
