314 NOTES ON AGAVE. 
broader base, straight, almost black and very rigid, 6-8 lines apart; teeth below the upper third smaller and closer 
set, and below the middle only 2-3 lines apart, less than 1 or only } line long and strongly curved downwards. Scape 
12 feet high, branches of the panicle loosely ramified, branchlets 3-6 inches long, pedicels 1-2 lines long ; flowers in 
small clusters, 3-6 or 8 together, 2} inches long, perigone half as long, divided to the middle ; stamens inserted about 
% from the base of tube, exsert about ? inch above lobes; anthers 10-10} lines long. Capsule 18-22 lines long, 7-8 
wide, similar to that of last species but not stipitate; seeds 2? lines in diameter, cells of the surface under the microscope, 
flat, punctulate. 
I have a flower and a capsule of Agaves differing from any above described, and thus perhaps 
indicating two other species; but as the material is too incomplete to characterize them, I only 
indicate them here for further investigation, 
AGAVE sp. “Common on mountain sides in the Wild Rose Pass on the Limpio,” West Texas, Chas. pele an: 
No. 1906 ; flowers only, collected June 11, 185], referred by Torrey in Bot. Bound. 213, to A. Americana. Flow 
not quite 3 inches long, perigone equal to ovary, divided to the middle ; stamens inserted about 3 up the fainriclichaolll 
tube, reaching 14 nee aus the lobes ; anthers 10 lines long.— Could it belong to the last described species, which 
was found 300 miles further south ? 
AGAVE sp. Dragoon Mountains, Southeastern Arizona, Capt. Chas. Bendire, U.S. A. A capsule and seeds 
only, with the verbal information that the leaves are about 3 feet long and 4 inches wide, and the scape nearly 20 feet 
high. The capsule is ovate-prismatic, 2 inches long, 10 lines wide, strongly cuspidate, at base obtuse; seeds 3} lines 
in longest diameter, apparently minutely pitted. —It is not probable that this could be a form of A. Americana, as 
that species has, I believe, always a stipitate capsule and larger seeds with flat, punctulate aree. 
ADDITIONAL REMARKS. 
The highest trunks of cultivated Agaves which I find noticed are 3-4 feet high, = [322 (34)] 
5-4 inches in diameter ; the thickest one was 14 inches through, but less high. I h 
met with no account of ie size they may attain in their native count 
The scape of A. Americana is said to measure sometimes 36 feet in height. 
The flowers of Agave are always more or less erect and of a coarser, calycine texture, while 
those of Yucca are pendulous and corolline. 
NOTICE TO BOTANISTS. 
I wish to direct the attention of vane = have the opportunity to observe the develop- 
ment of these plants, to the following question 
At what hour of the day do the anthers of ‘the different species burst and begin to shed their 
pollen, when do they become entirely effete, and in what state is then the style? How long after- 
wards and when does the style of the same flower attain its full development, and when and how 
much do the stigmatic lobes open or spread, and when does the stigmatic liquid fill the cavity of the 
style and cover the inside of the lobes?—-I have above given an account of these physiological 
processes in A. Virginica ; the only reference to them in literature which I can find is made by 
Jacobi, Ag. 310, where he says of an Agave of the second section, that the full development of the 
style and the separation and partial spreading of its lobes take place only after the stamens have 
faded, which, as far as it goes, fully coincides with my observations. His further remark, that the 
stamens are not inflexed in the buds of that species (A. Gwppertiana), is unquestionably erroneous. 
Of the floral development of the Agaves of the third section nothing at all seems to be known. 
