Trelease — The Agaveae of Guatemala. 137 



Agave Seemanniana Jacobi. 



Agave Seemanni Bull, List. 22:3. 1867; also 34:26, 45:18, 49:23. 



No doubt too incompletely characterized to fix this spelling of the 

 name, which nevertheless is still well established in gardens — e. g. 

 Finckh, Gard. 51: 407. /. (1897). 



A. Seemanniana, Jacobi, Ablandl. Schles. Gesellsch. 1869: 154. 



Acaulescent, not cespitose. Leaves glaucous, some- 

 what green-banded, openly spreading, oblanceolate-ob- 

 long or obovate, acute or subacuminate, minutely rough- 

 ened toward the apex, 8x35 cm.; spine purplish brown, 

 somewhat glossy above, minutely granular below, slen- 

 derly conical or acicular, more or less flexuous, involutely 

 grooved from above the middle with acute edges, decur- 

 rent for its own length or less, scarcely intruded into the 

 green tissue, 2-4x20-30 mm.: teeth brown or turning 

 gray, 10-20 mm. apart, 2-3 mm. long, rather straight 

 but the lower pointing downwards, the slenderly trian- 

 gular cusps abruptly dilated onto the tops of fleshy 

 prominences between which the somewhat concave mar- 

 gin sometimes bears slender dark denticles. Inflores- 

 cence said by the collector to be 2 m. high. From the 

 illustration of a specimen flowering in Sydney, N. S. W., 

 the inflorescence is 5 m. high, the oblong panicle with 

 densely bunched flowers occupying three-fourths of its 

 length, and the short scape with broad bracts. 



Specimens examined: Guatemala. Fiscal {Beam, 

 6154, June, 1909). Without data, living plants (Mis- 

 souri Botanical Garden, 1887; Kew, no. 271/97, 1905). 

 A specimen with the spine-base heavier than usual, but 

 referred here, occurs without data in the herbarium of 

 the Missouri Botanical Garden {Norton, 2, Feb., 1912), 

 and may be called var. perscabra. 



That A. Seemanniana may have been introduced into 

 cultivation in the form of plants as well as seeds is sug- 

 gested by Ellemeet's 15 reporting soon after its introduc- 



15 Belgique Horticole. 1871 : 118. 



