ENGELMANN NOTES ON THE GENUS YUCCA. 45 



feet high, covered with the refracted dead leaves. Leaves i J-3 

 feet long, 1-3 inches wide, narrowed downward, gradually atten- 

 uated into a very stout sharp or blunt brown point, channeled or 

 quite concave, thicker ihan in most other species, very stiff and 

 rough, especially on the back ; on old branching plants Dr. Pal- 

 mer found the leaves scarcely over i foot long and i inch wide, 

 but v^ery thick. The fibres are as thick as ordinary twine, and 

 often regularly curved backward. The panicle of the stemless 

 form is raised on a scape of almost its ov/n length, in caulescent 

 ones the peduncle is shorter. The exterior bracts are 4 or 5 inches 

 long and 2 wide, similar to those of the last species, but narrower. 

 The flowers are large, spreading 4-5 inches, segments 2J-3} inches 

 long, f-i inch wide, stamens papillose-hispid, as long as ovary, 

 rarely at last reflexed ; pistil 1-2 inches in length, style slender, 

 unusually long for the genus, in the largest flowers equalling the 

 ovary, in others J or only i its length ; ovules about 0.4 mm. thick. 

 The fruit is a dark purple berry, oval, " about the size and shape 

 of a hen's egg," with a very distinct and often elongated beak, 

 which is marked with six grooves, while the fruit itself is not 

 angled or grooved. Some fruits, I have seen, were 3 inches long 

 and 2 in thickness, with a beak of about half their Jength ; one 

 fruit from Arizona was 5 inches long, cylindric and curved. The 

 base is protracted below the remnants of the perigon, which is 

 not the case in the fruits of I", aloifolia or T. Treculiana ; the 

 pods of these three species are remarkably distinct, and always 

 easily recognized, while the seeds themselves are very similar. 

 The fruits are said to be " savory like dates," and are eaten fresh 

 by whites and Indians, and cured by the latter for winter pro- 

 visions. Dr. Palmer informs me that the Arizona Indians find 

 the stewed flower-buds and flowers quite pleasant and nourish- 

 ing. The seeds are often distinguished from those of the other 

 Sarcoyuccas by their large size, 10-17 mm. in the longer diame- 

 ter and 2-3 mm. in thickness ; but other fruits from the same re- 

 gions have seeds only 7-8 mm. long and 1.8-2 mm. thick. 



Var. ^, the southern, Mexican, form of this species, is princi- 

 pally distinguished by its smaller flowers, 2-3 inches wide, with 

 ovate or lance-ovate segments i J-if inches long and usually more 

 than half as wide ; by their short style and the somewhat thinner, 

 less rough, leaves, with thinner, often red-brown, fibres ; the pani- 

 cle is sometimes pubescent. Dr. Gregg notes that it is very 



