146 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



long-decurrent, somewhat intruded dorsally into the 

 green tissue: teeth similarly colored, more or less pol- 

 ished, 40-70 mm. apart, about 8 mm. long, recurved, the 

 triangular often curved cusps abruptly dilated into low 

 bases 15 mm. or more wide, between which the smooth 

 margin is nearly straight. Inflorescence 5-6 m. high, 

 the upper half ellipsoidally paniculate with slightly as- 

 cending branches: bracts broadly triangular, densely 

 imbricated so as to cover the scape completely, those 

 of the panicle reduced and spreading: pedicels thick, 

 5-10 mm. long. Flowers yellow, about 70 mm. long: 

 ovary 30-35 mm. long, about equaling the perianth, ob- 

 long: tube openly conical, 10-15 mm. deep: segments 

 about 20 mm. long, shorter than the ovary: filaments 

 inserted about the middle of the tube, some 40 mm. long. 

 Capsules (immature) oblong, some 30x60 mm. Ap- 

 parently not bulbiferous. 



Specimens examined: Guatemala. About Quezalte- 

 nango (T release, 17 — the type, in the herbarium of the 

 University of Illinois; 18, both in April, 1915). 



Known to me only as planted in hedge-rows, sparingly 

 in the vicinity of Mixco, between Antigua and the cap- 

 ital — and in gardens in the latter, but abundantly in and 

 about Quezaltenango, north of which it is said to occur 

 wild in the mountains. Evidently of the group Atrovi- 

 rentes, to which the pulque species of Mexico belong, — 

 the type of which, A. atrovirens, like Furcraea longaeva, 

 was described from Mt. Tanga in southern Oaxaca. 



Though pulque is now unknown in Guatemala, Fuen- 

 tes y Guzman, ' ' regido perpetual de la ciudad de Goathe- 

 mala," records that excellent pulque was produced at 

 Atmolonga or Ciudad Vieja and at San Gaspar two cen- 

 turies ago; 19 but there remains no evidence of it that 

 I have been able to discover unless it be in these scat- 

 tered hedge-rows of Agave tecta. 



is Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida. 1 : 289. Madrid, 1882, — 

 the manuscript written in 1690. 



