130 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



by its describer 6 to have been discovered by Dr. Berthold 

 Seemann in the colony of New Segovia in the republic of 

 Guatemala and introduced by him into English gardens 

 by means of seeds. I do not know of a Guatemalan town 

 called Segovia, however, and the seedsman who first ad- 

 vertised the plant in the autumn of 1867 as A. Seeman- 

 ni, 7 says that it was collected by Seemann in stony places 

 in the department of Matagalpa, Nicaragua — which, in- 

 deed, is adjacent to Segovia. There seems to be no evi- 

 dence therefore that A. Sartorii is Guatemalan; but 

 what is taken for A. Seemanniana does occur in eastern 

 Guatemala, some 300 miles northwest of the Nicaraguan 

 region from which it really seems to have been described. 



Herbaria, so far as I have seen them — and I have ex- 

 amined the principal collections of the world, give as 

 little evidence as do publications that the genus Agave 

 occurs in Guatemala, except that of late years several 

 amiable correspondents have sent me specimens that 

 are preserved at the Missouri Botanical Garden. 



My own connection with the matter dates from the 

 early part of 1901, when I observed several rosette-form- 

 ing agaves along the trail from El Rancho, on the 

 Motagua River — where the railroad from Puerto Bar- 

 rios then stopped — to the capital. At that time I was 

 making a hurried survey of the distribution of Yucca 

 guatemalensis (or elephantipes) , and collected no agaves, 

 and it was not until the present spring that I found op- 

 portunity to study these plants through a short leave of 

 absence kindly granted by the President and Trustees 

 of the University of Illinois, supplemented by an hon- 

 orary commission from the Secretary of Agriculture 

 of the United States. The following pages summarize 

 what I have been able to ascertain in the field and from 

 a study of the specimens that were sent me while I was 



6v. Jacobi, Abhandl. Schles. Gesellsch. 1869: 154. 

 7 Bull, List. 22: 3. 



