THE YUCCEAE. 95 



European gardens under the erroneous name Y. Calif or- 

 nica. 



I do not find herbarium material or published records 

 showing the native home of Y. elephantipes, and though it 

 is cultivated everywhere in the interior as a hedge or door- 

 yard plant, it is not wild in Guatemala between Puerto 

 Barrios and San Jose', nor in Honduras between Puerto 

 Cortez and Santa Cruz de Yohoa, and a gentleman who 

 has traveled extensively in Salvador and is familiar with 

 the plant reports it as occurring in that republic only in 

 cultivation. Doubtful reports locate it in the mining 

 region back of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and near the 

 Atlantic coast about Bluefields, Nicaragua, the latter 

 being more probable, as it is more likely to belong to the 

 Atlantic slope than the South Coast. In foliage it is 

 much like Y. aloifolia Draconis, the flowers of which, 

 however, are different. It is probably this species which 

 occurs, in small specimens, in the gardens of Belize, where 

 the poetic negroes and Caribs call it " May-pole." The 

 Mexican specimens collected by Schiede and Deppe in 1829 

 at the Hacienda de la Laguna (about five leagues south of 

 Jalapa, according to a note published by Schiede*) were 

 doubtless obtained from a cultivated plant, though Schlech- 

 tendal (Linnaea. 17 : 270) speaks of its frequent occur- 

 rence and mentions the names isote and palmita as applied 

 to this Yucca. 



Throughout Guatemala and Honduras, this tree is known 

 as " Izotef," and while it is chiefly cultivated as a rather 

 poor hedge plant, the flowers are prized as a table vege- 

 table and they are frequently exposed for sale in the mar- 

 kets of Guatemala City and other towns, the usual method 

 of employing them being to fry them with eggs. No use 

 appears to be made of the leaf -fiber, other cordage mate- 



* Baker, Journ. Linn. Soc. Bot. 18 : 222. Schiede, Linnaea. 4 : 232. 

 t See Jauregui, Vicios del lenguaje y proviiicialismos de Guatemala. 

 340. (Guatemala, 1893). It is erroneously called T. gloriosa. 



