ILLUSTRATIONS (26). ALOES. 333 



here associated together belong to very different families : 

 as, for instance, to the Laiacese, Asphodelese, Pandaneae, 

 Amaryllideee, and Euphorbiacese ; and are therefore, with 

 the exception of the last named, all included under the great 

 division of Monocotyledons. One of the Pandanese, Phyte- 

 lephas macrocarpa (Ruiz), which we found on the banks of the 

 Magdalena river in New Granada, exactly resembles with its 

 feathery leaves a small palm-tree. The Tagua (as it is called 

 by the Indians) is moreover, as Kunth has observed, the only 

 Pandanea of the New Continent. The singular Agave-like 

 and high-stemmed Doryanthes excelsa of New South Wales, 

 which the intelligent Correa de Serra was the first to describe, 

 belongs to the Amaryllidea3, like our low-growing Narcissuses 

 and Jonquils. 



In the candelabra-like form of Aloes, the branches of the 

 main-trunk must not be confounded with the flower-stalks. 

 In the American aloe, Agave Americana (Maguey de Co- 

 cuyza), which is entirely wanting in Chili, and in the Yucca 

 acaulis (Maguey de Cocuy), the leaf-stalks present a cande- 

 labra-like arrangement of the blossoms during the excessively 

 rapid and gigantic development of the inflorescence, which, as 

 is well known, is but too transient a phenomenon. In some 

 arborescent Euphorbias the physiognomical character depends, 

 however, on the branches and their arrangement. Lichtenstein 

 describes,*'' 1 with much animation, the impression made upon 

 him by the appearance of an Euphorbia officinarum which he 

 saw in the " Chamtoos Rivier." near Cape Town. The form 

 of the tree was so symmetrical, that it repeated itself on a 

 small scale, like a candelabrum, to a height of more than 30 

 feet. All the branches were furnished with sharp thorns. 



Palms, Yucca and Aloe plants, arborescent Ferns, some 

 Aralias, and the Theophrasta, where I have seen it in a state 

 of luxuriant growth, present to the eye a certain physiogno- 

 mical resemblance of character by the nakedness of the stems 

 (there being no branches) and the beauty of their summits or 

 crowns, however they may otherwise differ in the structure of 

 the inflorescence. 



Melanoselinum decipiens, (Hofm.), which has been intro- 

 duced into our gardens from Madeira, and is sometimes 

 from 10 to 12 feet high, belongs to a peculiar group of 

 * See his Reisen im sudlichen Afrika, th. i. s. 370. 



