THE YUCCEAE. 107 



mon about Monterey, since no other comparable plant occurs 

 about Parras, and the same species is common about Sal- 

 tillo, where Gregg's leaves were collected, though a very 

 different plant, some leaves of which, however, might be 

 mistaken for some of those of this species, accompanies it in 

 the mountains south of that city. It is also seen from about 

 San Luis Potosi to the edge of the table-land, and from 

 .Monterey it reaches southeastwards as far as the central 

 part of the state of Tamaulipas. 



Throughout the large area covered by these observa- 

 tions, and which is doubtless capable of extension, Y. 

 australis is distinguished from all of its congeners by the 

 possession of a long rather narrow panicle hanging straight 

 down from the cluster of leaves, on a quickly arched base, 

 even before anthesis ; and as this character is as marked in 

 the fruiting clusters and even in the old inflorescence re- 

 mains of former years as in the flower clusters, the recog- 

 nition of the species is very easy throughout most of the 

 territory in which it grows.* Typically it becomes a large 

 much and loosely branched rough-barked tree, but in culti- 

 vation it often attains gigantic proportions before Branch- 

 ing, with an extent of many feet of the trunk covered by 

 still green leaves, as in the streets of C. P. Diaz; and in 

 the high dry region along the Tropic of Cancer, as about 

 Moctezuma, a low short-branched form occurs, sometimes 

 not over 3 or 4 m. high, but with a trunk a meter or more 

 in diameter. Though usually designated simply as palma, 

 it seems to be sometimes called palma de San Pedro, and 

 sometimes palma samandoca. 



Y. VALIDA Brandegee, Proc. Calif. Acad. ii. 2: 208. pi. 11. 

 (1889). Trelease, Kept. Mo. Bot. Gard. 3: 162. 



Similar in dimensions, habit, foliage, floral details and fruit, to the pre- 

 ceding. Inflorescence broadly ovoid, close to the leaves, continuous in 



* The erect panicle shown in Bot. Mag. iii. 47. pi. 7197, was produced 

 on a log from about Monterey, and therefore doubtless of this species, 

 but is quite unlike anything I have seen in nature, among thousands of 

 trees examined. 



