[ 81 ] 



PART II. HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC. 



THE genus Agave was founded by Linnaeus on a species which 

 he introduced into the University Garden at Upsala. From an 

 MS. work of his in Swedish, printed at Upsala by T. M. Fries 

 iu 1899, it appears that a specimen of the plant which he after- 

 wards described as Agave foliis spinodentatis mucronatisque in 

 the Hortus Upsaliensis ( Stockholm, 17 1*8, p. 89 ) flowered at 

 Noor between Stockholm and Upsala in 1708 and in this 

 MS. ( " Hortus Uplandicm " ) Linnaeus identifies the plant 

 that flowered at Noor with the Aloe ex America of Dodoens 

 and the Aloe folio in ollongum aculeum abeunte of Tournefort. 

 These synonyms among others are given in the Hortus Cliffor- 

 tianus (Amsterdam 1737} for the plant to which he subsequently 

 gave the name of Agave americana (Sp. PI. eel. 3, 1764, 

 Tom. I. 61). We will return to the Agaves in Clifford's 

 garden later, observing meantime that when first imported into 

 Europe from the New World, Agaves were classed by the 

 science of the day with the Aloe of Dioscorides (or " Bitter 

 Aloe ") owing to the similarity of foliage. 



It has been questioned (Bertolonl Fl. It. IV. 157, also Visiani 

 II. Dalmat. 7., 12!+) whether the Agave which has become 

 widely naturalized in S. Europe was in fact imported and not 

 actually indigenous ; but the evidence against any Agave being 

 a native of Europe is overwhelming. 



The ingenious argument of Ernst Meyer (Bot. Zeit. 25, 

 April, 1856) turns on a drawing made in the 15th century, or 

 earlier, of a plant said to occur in India, Persia, Greece, and 

 Apulia in a work on Simples composed by one Mathias Pla- 

 tearius, principal (in the IJth century ?) of the Medical School 

 at Salerno founded by Charlemagne ; but it is difficult to 

 distinguish figures of Aloe and Agave in the old authors when, 

 as Herr Meyer states was the case with the Salernian drawing, 

 no inflorescence is given. Probably a species of Aloe introduced 

 by the Saracens into S. Italy was intended. The Agave is 

 known in Calabria and Sicily by different names, of which one 

 at least is derived from the Arabic " Sabare " * which is still 

 the designation of the Bitter Aloe in the North of Africa. 



* From a root meaning (inter alia) "to turn sour or bitter," or from a 

 derivative that means " arid rocky places," which the best medical Aloe 

 inhabits. 



