NOTES ON THE GENUS YUCCA. 291 
This is perhaps the most magnificent Yucca known; trunks 6-15 and, even in Texas, sometimes 20-25 feet high, 
and 1-2 feet thick, terminating in several (sometimes 5-7) branches, each one bearing a crown of long rigid leaves, 
and often a panicle 2—4 feet long of something like 500 flowers. The bark of very old trunks has been noticed above ; 
younger stems are covered with the reflexed withered foliage. — Leaves longer than in any other species, 24-3 and 
very often 4, or even 4} feet long and 2-3} inches wide when flattened out, deeply channelled and quite semi-circular 
in the cross-section, thick, rigid and straight, ‘‘ bright sea-green,” very rough on the back, less so on the upper surface, 
terminated by a stout brown spine. The edge of the leaf at different stages of development partakes of the character 
of all the three forms, as to a less extent also do the leaves of Y. yloriosa; the margin of the young leaf is deep brown 
with a pale, cartilaginous, strongly serrulate edge; then it becomes smooth and at last is often detached in brown 
rough fibres 
The ite rt peduncle or scape of the inflorescence is 1-2 inches in diameter, the panicle 2-4 feet long, much 
branched and dense-flowered, glabrous or sometimes upwards pubescent, bearing large conspicuous bracts 4 or 5 inches 
long, 1-3 wide, concave, fleshy or leathery, greenish outside, whitish inside, with a sharp herbaceous or brown point; 
the ultimate small bracts are similar, mostly ovate-lanceolate ; in Mexican specimens from Parras they are thinner, 
oblong, os and pure white. 
ers vary from 2 to over 4 inches in expansion, and, if I may judge from the dried srgpapes are [43] 
remarkable fox the unusually narrow, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate segments of the perigone, 13-2} or even 2 
inches Jong, and about } as wide, and conspicuously pubescent at tip ; in the Mexican forms I find the a s more 
ovate and of the ordinary shape of most Yucca flowers, and only 1}-14 inches Jong. The very slightly papillose fila- 
ments, as long as the ovary and erect in the bud, soon become recurved-hooked. The prismatic ovary terminates in a 
slender, shot or ree! style, crowned by deeply divided strongly bilobed stigmas. I find the ovules invariably 
thicker (0.4—0.5 mm.) than in any of the foregoing species 
The cea is a pulpy cylindric, or wathinn hedintiuetly 6-sided, somewhat sulcate and 3-lobed, strongly rostrate 
ry, 3-4 inches long, about 1 inch thick, of a bitter-sweetish pleasant taste, much eaten by the Indians, who roast 
them and peel off the acrid rind. Seeds 6-7 mm. in the longest diameter, and 3 mm. thick, very similar to those of 
Y. alotfolia, but with the back less rounded. 
Yucca canaliculata, Hooker, Bot. Mag. 86, t. 5201, 1860, described from a plant cultivated at Kew, with a stem 1-2 
feet high, leaves 2 feet long, concave, semi-cylindric, rough on back, very probably isnot different aoe our plant; the 
flowers, in a peduncled pyramidal panicle, 4 or 5 feet high, are described as sulphur-yellow, but are s 
Gard. Ch. 1. ¢. to be cream-white. —A specimen in Mr. Henry Shaw’s Missonri Botanical nae thus labelled, 
flowered in April, 1872 ; its trunk is 4 feet high, the leaves 23-3 feet long, panicle 2 feet long, 1} feet wide, very densely 
flowered ; flowers 3-3} inches wide, segments ovate acute, outer 8-9, inner ones 9-11 lines wide ; filaments strongly 
recurved even when the flower has barely opened ; anthers very slightly notched above, with a burich of white articu- 
lated hair, corresponding with the hair at the tip of the perigone. 
Yucca glauca, Sims, as understood by Baker and figured in Refug. bot. v. t. 315, and Y. exigua, Baker, ib. t. 314, 
which can scarcely be distinguished from it, are classed with the acaulescent entire-leaved Yuccas, though the former 
bears a few fibres ; their fruit, in Europe unknown, may possibly be capsular, of which more at the proper place. 
Both are characterized by the conical attenuated stigma. 
. orchtoides, Carriére, Rev. Hort. 1861, p. 369, t. 89, as quoted by Baker, is described as the — of [44] 
= epee ; stemless like the last, with few short, soft-pomted leaves (9-10 inches long, 1 inch wide, a 
pe with a simple pubescent raceme only 14 feet high, perianth 1 inch deep; native country unknown. — 
ee it the a dwarfed variety of some other form, possibly of the last-mentioned Y. glauca ? 
* # * Folia margine filifera. : 
6. Yucca pacoata, Torrey in Bot. Mex. Bound, 221, 1858 ; Ives’s Rep. Bot. 29: acaulis seu plerumque caulescens ; 
foliis anguste lanceolatis versus basin dilatatam angustatis crassis rigidissimis scabris mucrone brunneo robusto pun- 
gentibus concavis ; margine filis crassioribus ornatis ; panicula brevius seu longius pedunculata plerumque levi, bracteis 
inferioribus atite ovato-lanceolatis cuspidatis pungentibus pergamentaceis supra albidis, ultimis lanceolatis ; stamini- 
bus demum patulis vix recurvis ovarium prismaticum fere wquantibus ; stylo vario nunc elongato; bacca sepius ovata 
rostrata. — Y. crasstfila, Engelm. in sched. 1 
Forma genuina : borealis, stolonifera ; aa nullo seu breviore ; foliis longioribus latioribus asperrimis rigidissi- 
mis, filis marginalibus crassis cinereis ; segmentis floruam magnorum angustis, stylo elongato. 
Var. 8. australis: caule elato ramoso, foliis tenuioribus levioribus, filis marginalibus tenuioribus sepe brunneis; 
segmentis florum minorum ovatis, stylo breviore 
A southwestern paged extending from Baythern Colorado, C, Thomas, to New Mexico, Dr. Wislizenus, A. Fen- 
dler No. 849, Ch. Wright, Dr. Bigelow, and West Texas, A. Schott, and into Southern Utah, J. £. Johnson, Arizona, 
Dr. E. Palmer, California (Los Angeles, Capt. Russell, Providence Mountain, Dr. J. G. Cooper, Monterey, Dr. Parry), 
