[ 3? j 



have been up to that time introduced into South Europe. 

 Camerarius has helped a good deal, we think, to perpetuate the 

 general assumption that the Agave which has been long culti- 

 vated in N. Europe (Agave americana of Linnaeus) is the 

 same species as that which has run wild on the Mediterranean 

 littoral. 



Kaspar Bauhin (" Pinax, etc. " Basel, 1671, p. 286} gives 

 under Aloe (T) Vulgaris, (2) Aloe folio in oblongum aculeum 

 abeunte, quoting for the second Aloe americana of Glusius and 

 Aloe alter urn genus of Gcesalpinius. Up to this time authors 

 were contented fco distinguish what we now call Agave from the 

 true Aloe, and when further kinds began to be discriminated 

 the definitions did not aim so much at sorting out the species 

 under either genus, but referred to "Aloe vulgaris " as the point 

 of departure, which has led to no little difficulty and misunder- 

 standing. 



K, Bauhin quotes a work by Liuschoten on the East Indies (which we have 

 not been able to consult) for his second Aloe, but it appears from other sources 

 that Linschoten saw or heard of that Agave in Africa or the Atlantic Islands. 



The earliest reference to Agave in the East Indies that we 

 have traced occurs in a book which professes to contain notes 

 by a pupil of Boerhaaue of lectures delivered by that acute 

 student of nature towards the close of the 17th century at 

 Ley den. This indicates that a species of Agave was by that 

 time established in the Dutch East Indies where it was planted 

 chiefly as a means of keeping out intruders.* 



From this work it seems that Boerhaaue (who taught a 

 system based in the main on an embryological foundation) 

 placed the genus "Aloe" in his class of " Monocotyledones 

 bracteatce " and recognized in all six species, of which No. 3 

 was the true Aloe from the island of Socotra (for which see 

 Bailey Balfour, Botany of Socotra, Edinburgh, 1883). Nos. 1 

 and 2 were also species of Aloe. From the virtues attributed 

 to the fifth and sixth kinds they were evidently Agaves 

 (or Furcrseas) and American. Of the fourth it is said 

 " Quarta laudatur pro summo nutrimento in usus humanos, uti 

 incolae testaniur circa Meklam, crescit in ingentem altitudinem 

 folia rigidimma habet. Hae pro wuris in propugnaculis imerviunt 



* Galliano (v. sup.) makes no allusion to any Agave as introduced in his 

 time into the E. Indies. 



