CHAP. CXVII. 



HALF-HARDY AiONOCOTYLEDO NE^. 



2529 



middle of August ; and, for about six 

 weeks, it made the rapid growth 

 of about 4 in. every 21 hours. After 

 this, its growth gradually became 

 slower, till, on the 11th of No- 

 vember, the spike was 14 ft. high, as 

 shown in the figure, and bearing 846 

 flowers in vai-ious stages of progress. 

 The flowers were green without, and 

 of a greenish yellow within. A spe- 

 cimen in the conservatory of the geo- 

 graphical establishment of Van der 

 Maelen at Brussels flowered in De- 

 cember, 1837. The height of the 

 flower-stem was 30 ft., and it was 

 furnished with from 1200 to 1500 

 flowers. The same plant had flowered 

 some years previously, so that this 

 second flower-stem in all probability 

 proceeded from a sucker. {JJli'cho 

 du Monde Savant, Dec. 29., 1837.) 

 The plant has ripened seeds freely 

 in the conservatory of M. Soulange- 

 Bodin, with whom it flowered in 

 1825, and who had, in the following 

 year, 1000 plants raised from its seeds. 

 Agave amencdiia, the American 

 Aloe, a native of the tropical part of 

 South America, on mountains 900 ft. 

 above the level of the sea. " Thence," 

 says Sir W. J. Hooker, " it has been 

 introduced into the warmer parts of 

 the old world, where fences are made 

 of it, and a fermented liquor called 

 pulque; and fibres for thread, and a 

 substance analogous to soap, have 

 also been extracted. It was, by the 

 late Mr. Yates, planted in his garden 

 at Saltcombe Bay, in Devonshire, 

 in 1804, when only 3 years old, and 

 but 6 in. high. It was placed in the 

 open air, without any protection, save 

 what was aflTorded by the neighbour- 

 ing hills. In the year 1820, it had 

 attained a height ofl 1 ft., and covered 

 a space of ground the diameter of 

 which was 16 ft., when it threw 

 up a flower-stem, which grew for 6 

 weeks at the rate of 3 in. a day, and 

 in September measured 27 ft. in 

 height, its branches being loaded with 

 16,000 blossoms j thus contradicting 

 the generally received opinion, that 

 the American aloe flowers only once 

 in 100 years." (Al'Cuiloch's Statis- 

 tics of the British Empire, i. p. 126.; 

 Vhormium thiax, the New Zea- 

 land Flax, is also quite hardy both 

 in the south of England and Ireland, 

 and is technically a shrub. 



8 A 2 



