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NOTES ON THE GENUS YUCCA. 277 
spiked ; petals broad-ovate, 14-1} inches long ; stigmas half as long as the ovary, see erect ; capsule cylindric-ovate 
thick, obtuse, short-pointed ; seed large (5-7 lines in diameter), with a wide m 
Var. 8. RADIOsSA, Eng. Stems eee feet high, with large panicles ; er Sil narrow lanceolate, 14~12 inches long. 
Western plains to Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, and into Utah ; the variety in Central Arizona, and northward to 
the borders of Utah. A very variable plant, which eastward toward the Mississippi and the Gulf has broader, shorter 
and more flaccid leaves (Y. stricta, Sims ?), but is always recognized by the thick never constricted obtuse 
capsule, and the large broad-margined seed, 5-7 lines wide. Both forms here noticed have very narrow leaves [497] 
the former 6 lines, the latter 4-5 lines wide. About St. George, Utah, a form occurs with leaves only 2 lines wide. 
§ 2. HESPERO-YUCCA. Filaments thickened upward, acute, smooth, mostly longer than the pistil, erect ; 
anthers didymous, broader than long ; ovary oval, the slender style tipped with a broad short 3-lobed stigma, 
bearing numerous filiform papille ; erect capsule loculicidally 3-valved from the apex, valves entire, undivided ; 
seeds thin, smooth, with entire albumen. 
Y. Wuipptet, Torr. Bot. Mex. Bound. 222. Stems none or short, prostrate ; leaves few, often falcate, rigid but 
not thick, gradually widening toward the broad base, rough on the margin, sharp-pointed, striated, glaucous, 12-18 inches 
long, $ inch wide or less; flowers panicled ; petals lance-oval, 13-3 inches long; capsule small, ovate or obovate, obtuse; 
seed narrowly margined. —From N. W. Arizona to the mountains and coast ranges of S. California; it may be expected 
in S. Utah. Flowers very different in size, some specimens with the largest in the genus; style sometimes as long as 
the ovary or much shorter, 
The following genus is founded on a plant from W. Texas, originally described as a doubtful Yucca, then as an 
Aloe, but evidently distinct from both. 
HESPERALOE, Ena. N. Gen. 
Perianth cylindric, of 6 (reddish) petal-like linear obtuse leaves, united at base, withering-persistent, the outer 
ones cucullate at apex ; filaments from a broad adnate base, subulate-filiform, of the length of the perianth, in the bud 
geniculate-inflexed below the tip ; anthers oblong, bifid below; ovary ovate, 3-celled, several times shorter than the 
filiform style; small capitate stigma exsert ; capsule 3-celled, 6-valved, with 6 rows of thin black horizontal Yueca- 
like seeds, and a linear diagonal embryo of the length of the albumen.—Corm bearing the Yucca-like filamentose- 
margined leaves and a scape, with the fascicled flowers in a spike or few-branched panicle. The leaves, pollen,! and 
seeds are those of a Yucca, the ie ae and pistil that of an Aloe ; the filaments, being adnate at base and geniculate 
upwards, resemble those of an 
HESPERALOE YUCCAFOLIA, end (Yucca (!) parviflora, Torr. Bot. Mex. Bound. 221. Aloe yuccefolia, Gray. 
Proc. Amer. Acad. 7. 390.) 
II. NOTES ON THE GENUS YUCCA. 
From TRANSACTIONS oF THE Sr. Lovis ACADEMY oF ScrENcE, III. 1878, pp. 17-54. 
The stately Yuccas, of liliaceous alliance and of American origin, had attracted the attention of 
European horticulturists long before Linnaeus classed the then known species, four in number; and, 
indeed, three of these were based on specimens cultivated in European gardens, two of them, Fare 
alovfolia and Yucca Draconis, on the elegant and very accurate figures of cultivated plants by 
Dillenius, published some one hundred and forty years ago. Ever since the Yuccas have remained 
favorite plants in the gardens on account of their palm-like (hence Palmilla of the Mexicans), either 
frigid and pungent or gracefully curved foliage, shooting wp from the ground in pleasingly regular 
masses, or raised into the air on simple or branching trunks, all overtopped by immense white 
panicles of hundreds of glorious flower-bells 
1 The pollen-cells of Yucca are globose, 0.055-0.065 mm. bose when fresh, but when dry lanceolate, folded or grooved 
diam. ; those of Hesperaloe are similar but only 0.050-0.055 (much like those of Hyacinthus and many other Liliacee), 
mm, diam,., and those of Aloe 0.030-0.050 mm. diam., glo- slowly becoming globose when soaked. 
