THE YUCCEAE. 83 



Y. plicata, and Y. angustifolia vera$ and Y. TreculeanaQ 

 with various species; and I have knowledge that within 

 recent years a very large series of reciprocal crosses have 

 been effected by Mr. Carl Sprenger between these sub- 

 entire-leaved forms as well as between them and both 

 baccate and capsular species, and within the latter groups.* 

 In Texas, also, spontaneous hybrids between Y. rupicola 

 and Y. Louisianensis appear to occur. 



Everything considered, therefore, the garden intermedi- 

 ates between Y. gloriosa, Y. recurvifolia and Y. flexilis 

 may at least quite as properly be looked on as being the 

 probable results of occasional unrecorded crossing between 

 these forms as merely very aberrant sports. Few of them 

 appear now procurable, but as far as a knowledge of them 

 can be obtained from the brief descriptions, the known hy- 

 brids of M. Deleuil are capable of natural arrangement 

 under one or the other of these so-called species. 



With respect to the latter, themselves, the same line of 

 inquiry suggests itself. The garden Y. flexilis , though in 

 its typical form much narrower- and greener-leaved and with 

 more elongately pedunculate and lax panicle, appears mor- 

 phologically to represent only an extreme development of 

 Y. recurvifolia, with which, except that it lends itself read- 

 ily to the coordination of a number of forms in this respect 

 comparable with those similarly grouped under Y. recurvi- 

 foUa, it would logically be connected. The latter itself 

 presents to the eye a blending of the characters of Y. glori- 

 osa and Y. flaccida, which led one of the best students of 

 woody plants, Koch,t to suggest some years since that it 

 may be a hybrid between Y. gloriosa and Y. Jilamentosa, 

 under which name he doubtless meant the recurved-leaved 

 plant here called Y. flaccida. No greater reason exists for 



* On the results reached by M. Deleuil see Eevue Horticole. 52 : 226. 

 55 : 109. 58 : 63. 67 : 81. /. 21-23. Gard. Chron. n. s. 18 : 807. 

 t Dendrol. 2 2 : 344. 



