[ 137 ] 

 Ayaveae (also certain other fibre plants) or to their products. 



Bulletin, 

 Pge 



54 



24, 51, 

 57, 60. 



10, 12 



22 



37,41 

 37,41 



REMARKS 



This nutive name is not current in N.-W. India so far as we know, 

 and was taken possibly from Roxburgh, whose specific name is 

 wrongly quoted. Roxburgh's own spelling of it varied; in the 

 Hort. Beng. it is A. Cantala : in the Flora Indica A. Cantula, 

 We have followed the former for our (E), of which we have seen no 

 Pan jab examples except from the Kangra Valley and neighbourhood. 

 Mr. Burkim however, has observed it in f.he Satlaj basin from Suket 

 to below Simla. 



Under Part II it has been explained why we do not follow Wight in 

 identifying his plant with the A. vivipara of Linnaeus. As 

 regards ' Kantala,' Linnaeus most certainly never saw Agave ( J) (i.e., 

 Wight's vivipara), nor probably did Roxburgh, and Roxburgh's 

 species, which is our (E), is altogether different. In his first 

 accounts (which give a high place to the fibre), Roxburgh wrote of 

 it as a new species. Later he seems to have referred it to 1 A. 

 americana.' Ultimately it was published as A. Cantala. Whether 

 it was the Kantala of the Asiatic Researches is doubtful. Voigt 

 and Colebrooke very possibly supposed that Wight's plant was a 

 native arid the original Kantala, but the plant which Roxburgh 

 identified with Rumpf's illustration is our Agave (E) and not Wight's 

 vivipara. From an economic point of view the distinction is mate- 

 rial, for the leaf of (J) has been found to be too short for fibre ex- 

 traction on a commercial scale, whereas fibre prepared from (E) ranks 

 in the market. The A. vivipara of Baker in the Gardener's Chro- 

 nicle is by description A. vivipara of Wight not of Linne but plants 

 now in cultivation at Kew ticketed A. vivipara belong to A. 

 Cantala Roxb. 



Our (D) = A. Vera Cruz, Mill. 'A. lurida' of the Sibpur Garden 

 (not of Gawler and others) may have been the plant identified by 

 the Pandits who assisted Sir William Jones and his contemporaries 

 in their endeavours to identify plants mentioned in the Hindu 

 Classics and Pharmacopeia; but we do not think it is the fibre 

 plant on which Roxburgh reported, which was, we consider, 

 Agave (E), i.e., A. Cantala, Roxb. 



Cf. Carao, Carow, and Caraguata (1). 



Sloane goes on to identify this with the Jamaica Penguin. Her- 

 mann's plant was very likely the ' Bromelia^lsylvestris ' of later 

 authors ; but if it yielded fibre would more" likely be Karatas 

 Plumieri, Morren, than Eromelia Pinguin, Linn. See Erotnelia 

 pita, Caraguata-acanga and Caraguata (1), also Istle (1) and (2) 

 and SilJc grass for the confusion under this set of names of Srome- 

 liaceous fibre plants with Furcr&a and Agave. 



* A fruit,' and therefore no doubt rightly identified by Sloane with 

 the Jamaica ' Penguins.' 



A 'pite* without prickles which Sloane thought might be Hernandez' 

 Pati and Oviedo's JETenequen (i.e., a Fvrcraea or a Sisal Aaavt) 

 See Pite also. 



