208 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



Y. FILAMENTOSA, L. (PL 11, 22). This species is the 

 subject of nearly all of the pollination observations hereto- 

 fore published, and its interrelations with Pronuba yucca- 

 sella are so well known that I need scarcely do more than 

 refer to Professor Riley's account in the last Garden Re- 

 port. In St. Louis the observations of preceding years * 

 have been repeated by myself and others, and on several 

 occasions the collection of pollen was again witnessed, but 

 in the same imperfect manner as last year, owing to the 

 haste of the moth. Although special attention has been 

 given to this point I have failed to see the moth attempt 

 to feed on either the stigmatic secretion or the septal 

 nectar, nor have I been able to reconvince myself that she 

 makes use of the tongue in pollination, as I once thought. 

 As in the case of Yucca elala, the moth, when disturbed 

 by the lantern while ovipositing, sometimes attacks the 

 stamens, as if intending to reinforce her load of pollen, but 

 in most cases without proceeding far in this before retreat- 

 ing to the resting position within the base of the flower, or 

 leaving the latter. In addition to the insects heretofore 

 seen in the flowers of this species, I have this year seen 

 several specimens of a rather large flower beetle, Trichius 

 piger, in the bottom of the flowers, with their heads at the 

 outlet of the nectar grooves as if feeding on the small 

 amount of secretion. 



HESPEROYUCCA. 



Filaments aduate to the petals below : po lien agglutinated in coherent 

 masses: style slender: stigma capitate, hyaline-papillate, with a micro- 

 scopic axile canal: fruit capsular, loculicidal. 



Y. WHIPPLEI, (Torr.) Baker. (PI. 16, 23). From the 

 San Bernardino Mountains north to the latitude of 

 Monterey and south into Lower California in the Coast 

 Range, this peculiar species is very abundant, especially 



* See Eiley, 1. c. 123 etc. Ellacombe in the Gardeners' Chronicle 

 for 1872, p. 1457, Morse, ibid. 1885, xxiv. 598, and Smith, ibid. 1872, 1391, 

 report spontaneous capsules on this species in England. This should be 

 compared with the references given under gloriosa. 



