ENGELMANN NOTES ON THE GENUS YUCCA. 43 



The flowers vary from 2 to over 4 inches in expansion, and, if 

 I may judge from the dried specimens, are remarkable for the 

 unusually narrow, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate segments of the 

 perigon, 1^-2 or even 2 J inches long, and about i as wide, and 

 conspicuously pubescent at tip ; in the Mexican forms I find the 

 segments more ovate and of the ordinary shape of most Yucca 

 flowers, and only i\-ii inches long. The very slightly papillose 

 filaments, as long as the ovary and erect in the bud, soon become 

 recurs'ed-hooked. The prismatic ovary terminates in a slender, 

 short or longer, style, crowned by deeply divided strongly bilobed 

 stigmas. I find the ovules invariably thicker (0.4-0.5 mm.) than 

 in any of the foregoing species. 



The fruit is a pulpy cylindric, or rather indistinctly 6-sided, 

 somewhat sulcate and 3-lobed, strongly rostrate berry 3-4 inches 

 long, about i inch thick, of a bitter-sweetish pleasant taste, much 

 eaten by the Indians, who roast them and peal the acrid rind off*. 

 Seeds 6-7 mm. in the longest diameter, and 3 mm. thick, very 

 similar to those of K aloifolia but with the back less rounded. 



Yucca canaliculata^ Hooker, Bot. Mag. 86, t. 5201, i860, 

 described from a plant cultivated at Kew, with a stem i -2 feet 

 high, leaves 2 feet long, concave, semi-cylindric, rough on back, 

 very probaby is not difl'erent from our plant ; the flowers, in a 

 peduncled pyramidal panicle, 4 or 5 feet high, are described as 

 sulphur-yellow, but are stated by Baker in Gard, Chr. 1. c to be 

 cream-white. — A specimen in Mr. Henry Shaw's Missouri Bo- 

 tanical Garden, thus labeled, flowered in April, 1872 ; its trunk 

 is 4 feet high, the leaves 2^-3 feet long, panicle 2 feet long, \\ 

 feet wide, very densely flowered ; flowers 3-3 i inches wide, seg- 

 ments ovate acute, outer 8-9, inner ones 9-1 1 lines wide ; fila- 

 ments strongly recurved even when the flower has barely opened ; 

 anthers very slightly notched above, with a bunch of white articu- 

 lated hair, corresponding with the hair at the tip of the perigon. 



Yucca glauca^ Sims, as understood by Baker and figured in 

 Refug. bot. V. t. 315, and Y. exigua^ Baker, ib. t. 314, which can 

 scarcely be distinguished from it, are classed with the acaulescent 

 entire-leaved Yuccas, though the former bears a few fibres ; 

 their fruit, in Europe unknown, may possibly be capsular, of 

 which more at the proper place. Both are characterized by 

 the conical, attenuated stigma. 



Y. orchioides^ Carriere, Rev. Hort. 1861, p. 369, t. 89, as 



