158 FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT 



infested. Through the courtesy of the same gentleman, I have also 

 received the moth, taken around Yuccas, from South Carolina, and 

 the pods of several species from the same State and from Texas, while 

 the larvae were yet working in them. There is every reason to believe, 

 however, that beyond the native home of these plants the insect does 

 not occur, except where it has naturally spread or been artificially 

 introduced ; and it is an interesting fact that, so far as I am able to 

 learn, the dehiscent species in the northern parts of this country and 

 in Europe never produce seed. 



The cocoons containing the dormant larvae can be very conve- 

 niently sent by mail from one part of the world to another, and by 

 their aid our transatlantic florists may yet have the satisfaction of get- 

 ting seed from their Yuccas without any personal efl"ort. 



[I have been led to reproduce this article from the Academy Trans- 

 actions: first, because I wish to lay the facts before the reader; sec- 

 ondly, because I fear that, through unavoidable delay in the publica- 

 tian of said Transactions, it would otherwise not be given to the public 

 in time to lead to relevant observations in other parts of the country 

 the coming summer. I have given but an inkling of the interest at- 

 taching to the subject, and made but a commencement in the record 

 of facts. 



From an abstract of the paper, made at the Dubuque meeting of 

 the American Association for the Advancement of Science last Au- 

 gust, the leading thoughts have been published in several periodicals 

 both of this country and Europe, and have elicited the following facts: 



J. W. B., of Flushing, L. I., says : " In my own garden, the Y. fila- 

 -mentosa. Gray, blooms and matures its seed annually. I have never 

 been able to "discover the intervention of any insect to assist fertili- 

 zation, nor have I ever failed to secure the prompt germination of 

 seed taken from any well-matured capsule." — \_Bulleti'n Torrey Bot. 

 Club, Avg. 1872. 



It does not strike me as strange that J. W. B. should have failed 

 'to observe the moth, when it had hitherto escaped the notice of both 

 botanists and entomologists. As, however, after more carefully 

 examining his capsules, he subsequently found the perforations of the 

 larvae, {ihid^ Nov., 1872), he will no doubt find the moth next year by 

 properly seeking it. 



Three large plants of the Adam's-needle, or Beargrass, ( Yucca 

 Mamentosd), in our garden near New York, produced fine clusters of 

 •capsules this autumn,; upon examining them we found that apparently 

 every seed-vessel either contained an insect, or had a hole showing 

 where one had escaped. The capsule of this Yucca consists of three 

 <5ells, .and generally but one of them was inhabited by the larva. 



