164 



LILIACEJ^. Yucca. 



■h- Fruit baccate: seeds thick, undulate, tvith ruminate albumen: leaves fila-- 



mentose. 



1. Y. baccata, ToiT. Stoloniferous : caiulex usually short, covered with the 

 refracted dead leaves, or none : leaves narrowly lanceolate, contracted above the 

 dilated base, 1 to 3 feet long and an inch or two wide, thick, very rigid and usually 

 scabrous, concave and often deeply so, terminating in a very stout brownish spine, 

 the margin at length bearing coarse recurved threads : panicle pedunculate, pyram- 

 idal, mostly smooth : lower bracts ovate-lanceolate, pungent, somewhat coriaceous, 

 whitish within, the upper narrower : flowers usually large, the segments of the peri- 

 anth 1 to 3 inches long and G to 12 lines wide : stamens 6 to 9 lines long : ovary 

 oblong, prismatic, an inch or two long including the slender more or less elongated 

 style : fruit pendulous, baccate, dark purple, ovate to cylindrical, 2 to 5 inches long, 

 beaked : seeds often very large (4 to 8 lines broad) and thick. — Bot. ]\Iex. Bound. 

 221 ; Engelm. Bot. King Exp. 496, and 1. c. 44; 111. Hort. 3 ser. t. 115. Y. jUa- 

 mentosa?, Wood, Proc. Philad. Acad. 1868, 167. 



From Monterey to San Diego, ranging to S. Utah, W. Texas and Northern Mexico. A varia- 

 ble species, the more northern form often acaulescent, but southward becoming 8 to 10 feet high 

 or more. The fruit is sweet and edible ; flowering from March to June, according to latitude. 



-)- H— Fruit becoming dry and spongy : seeds thickish, smooth, with entire albu- 

 men : leaves serrulate. 



2. Y. brevifolia, Engelm. Caudex erect, tall (15 to 30 feet high, often a foot 

 or two in diameter), with rough cracked bark, branched above : leaves short (usually 

 6 to 8 inches long and 3 to 6 lines Avide), very rough and rigid, linear from a broad 

 base, attenuate into a sharp stout spine, somewhat convex above, the margin very 

 rough with small stout teeth : flowers fetid, erect, crowded in a sessile ovate panicle : 

 bracts ovate to lanceolate, white and scarious-margined, nearly equalling the flt)wers : 

 pedicels very short : segments of the narrowly campanulate perianth greenish-white, 

 narrowly lanceolate, H to 2| inches long : stamens 4 or 5 lines long, about half the 

 length of the oblong-pyramidal ovary : stigmas short and nearly sessile : fruit erect, 

 ovate, 2 or 3 inches long (1| inches thick or more), slightly 6-angled, somewhat 

 pointed, with thick spongy pericarp.- — Bot. King Exp. 496, and 1. c. 47 & 213. 

 Y. Draconis, var. (?) arborescens, Torr. Pacif. R. Eep. iv. 147. 



In the desert region of San Bernardino County, and eastward to Southern Utah and North- 

 western Arizona, often abundant and even forming ' ' straggUng forests. " 



* % Perianth rotate-spreading : filaments acutish, smooth, erect / anthers didy- 

 nious, transverse : stigma hairy-papillose, pjeltate : fruit a locuUcidal capside : 

 seeds thin, smooth, with entire albumen: acaulescent, with serrulate leaves 

 and tall bracteate scape. — Hesperoyucoa, Engelm. 



3. Y. Whipple!, Torr. Stoloniferous ; caudex none or very short : leaves 

 glaucous-green, rigid, linear-subulate from a broad base, 10 to 20 inches long and 4 

 to 7 lines wide, attenuate to a sharp triangular brown spine, nearly flat, deeply con- 

 cave near the apex ; margin finely serrulate : scape 4 to 1 2 feet high, beset with 

 broad sheathing and imbricated foliaceous pungent bracts 6 to 9 inches long : panicle 

 narrow and spike-like, dense, smooth ; lower bracts large and foliaceous, the upper 

 small and scarious, much shorter than the slender pedicels which are conspicuously 

 jointed at or above the middle (| to 2 inches long) : segments of the greenish-white 

 pendulous perianth spreading horizontally, 1 to 2 inches long, oblong-lanceolate or 

 somewhat spatulate : stamens spreading, 4 to 7 lines long, equalling or longer than 

 the oblong deeply lobed ovary : style short, conical, bearing the green capitate-peltate 

 slightly 3dobed stigma : capsule globose-obovate, an inch long or more ; valves re- 

 maining entire after dehiscence and seeds escaping at either end of the false parti- 

 tion. — Bot. Mex. Bound. 222 ; Engelm. Bot. King Exp. 497, and 1. c. 54; Baker, 

 Gard. Chronicle, n. ser. vi. 196, fig. 42. Y. aloifolia, Torr. Pacif. R. liep. iv. 147. 



