jg 4 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



should have bloomed together this year, after a long period 

 of rest.* 



The most striking morphological peculiarities of the 

 species, aside from its rather stiff sword-shaped denticulate 

 leaves, are the marked stipe of the ovary, and the decidedly 

 hexagonal cross section of the ripening fruit, due to the 

 rapid growth of the nectar grooves, both of which feat- 

 ures are well shown on plate 44 of the Third Report. 



Y. YUCATANA, Engelm. So far as I can learn, nothing 

 is known of this species further than that it was collected 

 in Yucatan by Schott, whose specimens are preserved in a 

 few herbaria. 



Y. GUATEMALENSIS, Baker (PI. 1, 2, 19). This species is 

 said to occur in southern Mexico, as well as Guatemala. 

 In August and September, 1892, a fine plant, said to have 

 come originally from Haage and Schmidt as a Furcroea, 

 bloomed in the Garden, synchronously with a form of 

 gloriosa, but fully a month later than aloifolia. The polli- 

 nation arrangements appear to be almost identical with those 

 of baccata, which are described below. In this specimen the 

 scptal nectar glands, although they are not very large, were 

 more active than those of any other true Yucca known to 

 me, and their secretion appeared in rather copious drops at 

 the base of the ovary, where the nectar grooves open, or 

 in smaller drops near its top, where the glands open into 

 the grooves, if, as frequently happens, the latter have 

 spread somewhat. Artificial pollination gave a number of the 

 very large pendent baccate fruits, but nothing is known of 

 the natural pollinators of the species. 



The fruit raised by artificial pollination is very stout. 

 One of the larger (but not the largest) of the specimens 

 measured 2X3 in. and weighed, while still green, 6 oz. 

 At first quite hexagonal in cross section, its intercarpellary 

 facets ultimately disappear toward the base. The bases of 

 the filaments are adherent to the base of the fruit, much 



* Meehan (Monthly, ii. 190) mentions a plant which flowered for the 

 first time when at least seventy-five years old. 



