[ 64 ] 



under the name of A. Jacquiniana (reduced in the Index 

 Kewensis to A. lurida of Alton.}* 



We shall have to refer to this shortly, but the present point 

 is that the Saharanpur plant under discussion most assuredly is 

 not A. Jacquiniana, Hooker. It is nearest so far as we can judge 

 to the A. atrovirens of Karwinski (see Rose in Contrib. U. S. 

 National Herb. v. 223- -225) ? A. Salminna Otto, which is one 

 of the chief Pulque plants of Mexico : Humboldt (quoted by Sir 

 W. Hooker in his note on A. americana just mentioned) writes 

 " This sturdy, harsh and fleshy-leaved plant is uninjured by the 

 " occasional drought, frosts and excessive cold which prevail on 

 " the lofty cordilleras of Mexico" ; and it is possible that the home 

 of the pseud o- Jacquiniana is in that climate, and that it is there- 

 fore able to survive the winters of N. W. India, to which A Vera. 

 Cruz appears not to be equal, in the same degree at all events. 



We cannot follow the reduction of A. Jacquiniana, Hooker 

 to A lurida, if by "A. lurida " A. Vera-Crnz Miller be intended, 

 and it is hopeless to compare A. lurida of Alton, as the typef 

 has long ago been lost, while the descriptions in the systematic 

 books are mostly fitted to A. Vera-Cruz, with the misleading 

 addition of a long caudex (as a compromise perhaps with A. 

 Jacquiniana^ Hooker). 



"We have referred to this Saharanpur "Jacquiniana" because 

 if aloe fibre cultivation should extend it seems not at all an 

 unlikely sort to be tried in the colder parts of India, though 

 it might turn out to be of more interest to the Excise than to 

 the Agricultural Department. At present there is not material 

 enough even for experiment (in Descriptive List C) . 



Agave"A. of the Descriptive List is in cultivation at 

 Saharanpur, though not as a " fibre aloe." In this the marginal 

 spines are small, fine, ruby-coloured and close-set on a hardly 

 perceptible border of the same tint running all along the leaf 



* A. Jacquiniana was originally proposed by Schultes (Syst. VJI. P. I. 

 p. 727) for the plant of the Collectanea (with regard to Gaw/er's strictures in 

 Sot. Mag. 1522) in case Jacquin's species should turn out to be distinct from 

 all previously described species. In 1859 an Agave that had come from 

 Honduras flowered at Kew, was identified with Jacquin's lurida and 

 published in the Sot. Mag. (5097) as A. Jacquiniana ; the corrc % ct citation 

 therefore is A. Jacquiniana, Hooker. This was not impossibly = A vivipara of 

 Wight A- Wightii nobis. 



f M v. Baker may be right in identifying the pla;it he described in the 

 Refugium with Alton's lurida, but the segments of the perianth in Saunders' 

 figure, and the leaves will not do for A. Vera Cruz of Miller. 



