118 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



face, nearly smooth on the upper, with short stout dark red-brown spines and dark 

 brown margins roughened by minute deciduous teeth and ultimately separating into 

 slender dark fibres; persistent for many years, the dead leaves hanging closely 

 appressed against the trunk below the terminal crown of closely imbricated living 

 leaves. Flowers in March and April on slender pedicels, in dense many-flowered 



glabrous or puberulous panicles 2-4 long and raised on short stout stalks; peri- 

 anth l'-2' long, 2'-4' in diameter when fully expanded, with narrow elongated ovate- 

 lanceolate to ovate segments, \' wide, acute, thin and delicate, furnished at the apex 

 with conspicuous tufts of short pale hairs; filaments slightly papillose, about as 

 long as the prismatic ovary gradually narrowed above and crowned by the deeply 

 divided stigmatic lobes. Fruit ripening in the summer, 3'-4' long, about 1' thick, 

 dark reddish brown or ultimately black, with thin succulent sweetish flesh; seeds 

 about \' broad, nearly T y thick, with narrow borders to the rim. 



A tree, occasionally 25-30 high, with a trunk sometimes 2 in diameter and 

 numerous stout wide-spreading branches; usually smaller and often forming broad 

 low thickets 4-5 tall. Bark on old trunks \' -\' thick, dark red-brown and 

 broken into thin oblong plates covered by small irregular closely appressed scales. 

 Wood light brown, fibrous, spongy, heavy, difficult to cut and work. 



Distribution. Shores of Matagorda Bay, southward through western Texas into 

 Nuovo Leon, and through the valley of the Rio Grande to the eastern base of the 

 mountains of western Texas; forming open stunted forests on the coast dunes at the 

 mouth of the Rio Grande; farther from the coast often spreading into great im- 

 penetrable thickets. 



Cultivated as an ornamental plant in the gardens of central and western Texas, 

 and occasionally in those of southern Europe. 



3. Yucca macrocarpa, Coville. Spanish Dagger. 



Leaves l^-2 long, l'-2' wide, gradually narrowed from the dark red lustrous 

 bases to above the middle, rigid, concave, yellow-green, rough on the lower surface 

 and frequently also on the upper surface, with stout elongated dark spines and thick- 

 ened margins separated into stout gray filaments. Flowers in March and April in 

 densely flowered sessile or short-stalked glabrous or occasionally pubescent panicles; 

 perianth usually about 2' long, with acuminate segments, those of the outer and 



