EXTRACT. 157 



twenty-five or thirty years, and probably a much shorter period 

 is sufficient to bring them to perfection. The most remarkable 

 instance on record of the early flowering of the American Aloe 

 is that detailed by Mr. Hawkins in the Transactions of the Horti- 

 cultural Society. This took place in the open ground, at Wood- 

 ville, near Salcombe, Devonshire, the residence of the late 

 James Cole, Esq., and considering that the plant is a native of 

 South America, more especially within the tropics, it tells more 

 the mildness of that part of England, than any circumstance that 

 could be mentioned. The Aloe was planted in 1804, when it 

 was only about six inches high, and then only two or three years 

 old, within a few yards of the sea shore, yet elevated forty or fifty 

 feet above the level of the water, where it had never any cover, 

 shelter, manure, or cultivation. In 1812, it was more than five 

 feet, and it grew during that summer, nearly the eigth of an inch 

 daily. In 1820, it measured between ten and eleven feet in 

 height, and covered a space, the diameter of which was sixteen 

 feet ; its leaves close to the stem, being nearly nine inches thick. 

 In the beginning of June of that year, a stem made its appear- 

 ance resembling ahead ofaspargus of an immense size, which, 

 during six weeks grew at the rate of three inches a day, and then 

 gradually diminished in progress ; but not till it had attained the 

 elevation of twenty-seven feet from the ground, which was at 

 about the middle of September. The two lowest branches first 

 showed flowers on the 3d Septemher, and others came out in 

 succession from the beginning of October to the end of Novem- 

 ber, when they all began to loose their colour and decay. There 

 were upwards of forty flowering bunches, each with between three 

 and four hundred flowers, making in all about sixteen thousand 

 blossoms. As the stem grew, the leaves began to wither ; and it 

 appears the plant then died. Its age was twenty-one years': the 

 height from the earth when in blossom, twenty-seven feet: the 

 lateral branches, beginning at twelve feet from the ground, 

 were in number forty-two. the lowest projecting two feet from 

 the stem, and gradually diminishing to about a foot and nine 

 inches in length at the top ; the stalk where the side branches 

 commenced was twenty inches round, or near seven inches hi 

 diameter, gradually tapering to the apex ; the branches of flowers 

 (or at least those next the bottom, were from a foot to fourteen 

 inches in breadth. 



Although various instances are on record of this plant having 

 blossomed when confined in a pot or tub, and sheltered from the 

 severity of our climate, yet the occurrence is so rare, as to excite 

 a great deal of interest in the neighbourhood where such an event 

 takes place ; and I know not whether the variegated leaved variety, 

 which is not uncommon in collections, blossoms with equal readi- 

 ness ; not having myself heard of the flowering of that kind, till 

 that which is here represented threw up its flowering stem in the 

 summer of 1836, at Aiken Head, the seat of Mrs. Gordon, where 



