ENGELMANN — NOTES OX AGAVE. 297 



minate abruptly, as usual, but is continued into a bristle between 

 the flowers (A. mitis in H. Bot. Berlin), and may even bear a 

 third, median, flower, if the description of the inflorescence of 

 A. lophantha by Jacobi (Ag. p. 202) is to be relied on ; the flow- 

 ers are there said to be ternate, the pedicel of the middle one 

 being i line longer than. those of the lateral ones.* 



The species of the third section, Paniculatce^ are distinguished 

 by a branching inflorescence, a panicle, in which more or less 

 crowded bunches of flowers are borne on the end of secondary or 

 tertiary branches. I have not been able to examine fresh inflo- 

 rescences or their development, but, judging from dried frag- 

 ments, the flowers seem originally to appear in pairs, usually 

 with secondary and tertiary flowers unsymmetrically developed 

 from their pedicels, and at last clustered, sometimes 20 or 30 

 or more together, so that their relative position can not be un- 

 ravelled. 



FLOWERS. 



The flowers of the Agaves are thick and fleshy, often of lurid, 

 greenish, yellowish, or brownish colors ; rarely brighter, yellow 

 {^A. deserti), or orange {A. Antillarum). They consist of an 

 inferior ovary, bearing the style, and a not articulated, subper- 

 sistent perigon, with the stamens. 



The perigonal tube, straight, or often somewhat curved, is 

 either short, campanulate, sometimes quite shallow, or longer, 

 funnel-shaped, or even cylindric, or rather triangular-prismatic. 

 The lobes form two trimerous verticils, each of valvate aestiva- 

 tion, the thicker exterior ones covering the broader thinner 

 margins of the interior ones, leaving onW a prominent, tapering 

 middle part free. The lobes are generally oblong or linear- 

 oblong, shorter or longer than the tube, flat or often channelled 

 and including the filament, concave at the obtuse tip, which is 

 sometimes thickened, and usually bears a short, whitish beard ; 

 they are erect or patulous, or sometimes at last reflexed. 



The six stamens are more or less adnate to the tube, in some 



* Some forms are described so as to leave us in doubt in regard to their inflorescence, 

 e.g. A. horizontalis, Jacobi, with a spike consisting of clusters of 3-S flowers in the axil of 

 each bract; others are said to have 1-3 or 4-5 flowers together. All these probably belong 

 to the Geminiflorae, with a greater normal or, perhaps, monstrous development of flowers. 

 It is to be hoped that in future botanists or amateurs will be more precise in their apprecia- 

 ciation of these characters. 



