C 67 ] 



clearing up some of the mist that has fallen upon A. Ixtli and 

 on A. rigida of Miller. 



There is little to guide us as to the identity of Miller's 

 plant, but there IB nothing to shew that it was a Euagave, 

 and it should be looked for perhaps in another section of the 

 Grenus. The description (quoted we presume) in Kunth's 

 Enum., V. 830 of A. (Littaea) revoluta, Klotzsch seems not 

 far off it: Hernandez "Metl V angustifolia"=Nequametl (which 

 is not the Nequametl of Marhgraf apparently) should probably 

 find a place in the same neighbourhood. 



The last species that demands attention is the Sisal Agave, 

 of which, as we have already seen, there is one species and one 

 only in India. 



Dr. Engelmann, after giving a formal description of the 

 plant which he assumed to be the wild type of the " Sisal " 

 that is naturalized in Florida, proceeded to take up certain 

 cultivated forms as follows : - 



***** 



" Var. longifolia : foliis multo longioribus glaucis, aculeate - 

 dentatis, spina terminali non decurrenti. 



"Var.? Sisalana: foliis multo longioribus viridiorilus 

 wargine integris seupauci-dentatis, spina terminali non 

 decurrenti. Agave Sisalana, Perrine, vide infra. 



" The original* plant was, according to Miller, brought from 

 Vera-Cruz ; my specimens, on which the above 

 diagnosis is based, were collected in Yucatan by 

 Dr. Schott. Dr. Perrine forty, and Dr. Schott ten, 

 years ago studied in Yucatan this interesting 

 plant, its different forms and economical uses, 

 and left us accounts of it, the former in Senate 

 Doc. 300, Washington, Mar. 12. 1838; the latter 

 in the Report of the Agricultural Department at 

 Washington for 1869. Both agree that there is 

 a common native species in Yucatan, called Ohelem 

 by the aboriginal inhabitants ; but from time 

 immemorial a number of varieties, all character- 

 ized by much longer leaves, and one also by the 

 absence of marginal spines, and differing among 

 themselves in the quantity and quality of their 



* i.e., A. rigida Miller, on Engelwaun's theory, 



F 2 



