10 FLORA DOMESTICA. 



sand flowers; and a third in the botanic garden at Cam- 

 bridge, which, at' sixty years of age, had never borne 

 flowers. He specifies some others, remarkable for the num- 

 ber of their flowers, but does not mention the age of any 

 one at the time of flowering. 



" With us," says Rousseau, " the term of its life is un- 

 certain ; and after having flowered, it produces a number 

 of offsets, and dies." 



Brydone, speaking of the approach to the city of Agri- 

 gentum, says, " The road on each side is bordered by a 

 row of exceeding large American Aloes ; upwards of one- 

 third of them being at present in full blow, and making 

 the most beautiful appearance that can be imagined. The 

 flower-stems of this noble plant are in general betwixt 

 twenty and thirty feet high (some of them more), and are 

 covered with flowers from top to bottom; which taper re- 

 gularly, and form a beautiful kind of pyramid, the base or 

 pedestal of which is the fine spreading leaves of the plant. 

 As this is esteemed in northern countries one of the greatest 

 curiosities of the vegetable tribe, we were happy in seeing 

 it in so great perfection ; much greater, I think, than I had 

 ever seen it before. 



" With us, I think, it is vulgarly reckoned (though I be- 

 lieve falsely) that they only flower once in a hundred years. 

 Here I was informed, that, at the latest, they always blow 

 the sixth year, but for the most part the fifth. As the 

 whole substance of the plant is carried into the stem and 

 the flowers, the leaves begin to decay as soon as the blow is 

 completed, and a numerous offspring of young plants are 

 produced round the root of the old one. These are slipped 

 off, and formed into new plantations, either for hedges or 

 for avenues to their country-houses *." Thunberg says 



* BrydoneV Tour in Sicily and Malta, vol. ii. p. 5. 



