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An actount by Pierre "Bar el, a Languedocian who was some time physician to 

 Louis XIV (" Hortus * * * cum acourata description, etc.,'* Castries 1666 

 Paris 1669.) has been the source of sundry evergreen traditions about " Agave 

 americana." Borel is quoted in the Historia Plantarum (London 1686, 

 p. 1198) as follows : 



"JPetrus Borellus Aloe plantce caulem cum perl ongum tempus sine eo 

 remanserit tandem erumpere scribit cumfragore et strepitu ut impetu facto tota 

 in truncum fere convertatur coram mirantibus hominibus incrementum tantum 

 suscipere ut etiam Quercum mediocrem aequet et 30 circiter palmaram altitu- 

 dinem, et femoris crassitiem acquirat, floribusque in summitate decoretur. 

 Quodque magis mirandum intra paucos dies \_quatuor vel quinque'j Jianc molem 

 attingere, adeo ut incrementum ejus etiam oculis percipi potuit. Tale quid 

 visum nuper apud Monspelienset etc. credat Judaeus Apella" 



The last three words are not, of course, in Borel but are Ray's comment, 

 and produced later dissertations; but the facts collated by M. Charles Martina 

 (of Montpellier), Daniel!! and others shew that the flowering of different species 

 of Agave (Euagave) in Europe may be delayed from the sixth to the eighty- 

 second year of the life of the individual offset, 



Borel's specimen flowered at Pezenas near Montpellier during 1641 and the 

 then King of France with Cardinal de Richelieu and the whole Court went to 

 view it- This climate is that, in all Europe, perhaps most congenial to the 

 Agaveae, and in the adjoining Sub-Pyrenean County of Rousillon, more 

 especially about Perpignan, an Agave is naturalized on a great scale. (Le 

 Grand in Bull. Soc. de France, XVII, p. 95.) 



Bock (Tragus) about 1552, and Mattioli in the 1563 edition 

 of the Kreuterbuch make no allusion to any plant that could be 

 an Agave or Furcraea, though they deal fully with " Aloe" 

 but in Camerarius' edition of the Kreuterbuch (Frankfurt am 

 Jttain, 1590) Aloe americana is described and two illustrations 

 are given. The letterpress is taken from Gossalpinius and 

 Clusius almost bodily, but it is expressly noted that the plant 

 had come to North Europe from the West Indian Islands, 

 though the usual identification with the Metl of the American 

 Continent is added. One of the figures appears to be copied 

 from Clusius, with an addition which will presently be noted. 

 The other shows a flowering Agave in a gardener's "tub," 

 which might be almost any of the Euagave section. This was 

 sent by a correspondent in Italy to show how the American Aloe 

 " poled " in Tuscany. 



The addition to the figure borrowed from De Lee I use repre- 

 sents the terminal spine of an Agave which can only be 

 that known in English gardens now as Agave americana, 

 A flower is figured in the margin of the Florentine drawing, 

 which was probably meant to be of the natural size, but this 

 does not agree with either of the species which we suppose to 



