OBSERVATIONS ON FURCRAEA. 
BY 
WILLIAM TRELEASE. 
With plates XXXV—XLVIII. 
The genus Furcraca was segregated from Agave — because 
of its tubeless flowers, short filaments clavately thickened 
below, and stout-based truncately narrowed style — under 
this name in 1793 by Venrenat! with, as type, the nearly 
unarmed large plant that had been grown in Europe at least 
since 1648, when, according to Montine®, it was introduced 
into the Netherlands from Spain; and, in ignorance of Ven- 
TENAT’S publication, by Witiemer’, under the name Funium, 
in 1796, with, as type, the Mauritius hemp, that Avser* 
reports as having been introduced from Brazil at least as early 
as 1750, when he himself cultivated it in the gardens at Le 
Réduit. Though Venrenar’s description of F. gigantea shows 
that the outer leaves of his plant were armed with a few 
distant prickles, and the Funium pitiferum of WiLLEmMET was 
said to have the leaves sometimes spiny-dentate at the base 
or throughout, neither writer appears to have seen more than a 
Single Species in his material; but in 1847 Roemer® differen- 
tiated the prickly form of Mauritius under the varietal name 
Willemetiana. Recent observations, for which I am under great 
obligation to M. Bonamer, Director of the Experiment Station 
at Le Réduit, show that two plants of this type (PI. XXXY) are 
how distinguished in the island: ,aloés malgache”, an upland 
form with unarmed or essentially unarmed thick-based leaves, 
Which ig typical F. gigantea; and_,,aloés créole”, common 
_ Ann, Jard. bot, Buitenz. 2e Sér. Suppl. III. on 
