ENGELMANN NOTES ON AGAVE. 3X3 



flattened, t inch wide, 6 inches long ; ultimate pedicels usually 

 3-3 lines long. Flowers over 2 inches, the perigon 12-14 lines 

 long, tube 4-4J lines long and wide, lobe 9-9^ lines long and 2 

 wide ; stamens inserted at the base of the lobes, the inferior a lit- 

 tle lower than the exterior ones ; filaments 1 1 inches, anthers 10 

 lines long : style often at last longer than stamens. Capsule wider 

 in proportion to its length than in any other of our species belong- 

 ing to this section, about I f inches long and half as wide ; seeds 

 4 lines wide, with flat, punctulate, strongly marked reticulation, 

 visible under a strong glass. 



12. Agave Antillarum, Descourt. Flor. med. Antill. ^tab. 

 284(1827): subcaulescens : foliis late lanceolato-linearibus elon- 

 gatis, margine aculeis parvis distantibus rectis recurvisve fuscis 

 armato, spina terminali valida fusca terete basi solum anguste 

 canaliculata ; scapo sub-io-pedali ; paniculae ovatae ramis hori- 

 zontalibus, pedicellis longiusculis dense fasciculatis ; florum (au- 

 rantiacorum) ovario perigonio longiore, tiibo late infundibiliformi 

 lobis lineari-oblongis erecto-patulis ter quaterve breviore, stami- 

 nibus basi loborum insertis longe exsertis ; capsula ovato-prisma- 

 tica cuspidata basi in stipitem brevem contracta. 



San Domingo, Parry & Wright, U. S. Expl. Exp., Feb. 1871, 

 in flower. — The unusual color of the flower and the native coun- 

 try of the plant make it almost certain that this is Descourtil's 

 plant, and I adopt his, the oldest, name, even if Grisebach's (Flor. 

 West Ind. p. 582) suggestion should prove true, that it might be 

 identical with A. sobolifera, Salm, hort. 1834 (-^* "vivipara. Lam., 

 non Lin.) This plant is also reported to come from San Domingo 

 and Jamaica, but to have greenish or yellowish-green flowers 

 (Jacobi, Ag. 122) and to bear capsules as well as bulblets, whence 

 the names ; but none of our botanists seem to have observed such 

 proliferation, which in other allied Agaves and in a Fourcroya 

 were duly noticed. The measurements taken by them in San 

 Domingo of a "medium specimen" are: height of leaf-bearing 

 trunk 2 feet, length of leaf 30-36, greatest width 4J inches ; scape 

 8-10 feet high, at base 3 J inches thick, length of lower branches 

 of the panicle 9, of middle 12, and upper 3 inches ; nearly 100 

 flowers on the strongest branches. 



A single leaf before me is 3 feet long and 3^ inches wide, the 

 terminal spine 9 lines long, a narrow groove occupying only \ of 



