318 THE FLOWERING OF AGAVE SHAWIILI. 
Abundant opportunity was afforded to study the gradual development of the flowers (see also 
p. 298). FE have, on Plate 1V., represented these various phases by a series of figures carefully 
drawn from nature. 
The bud bursts in the morning or in the middle of the day (Fig. 4); the bent filaments begin 
to straighten out, the still closed anthers commence to protrude, the top of the style has not yet 
reached the tip of the perigonial lobes. Only thus far the perigone and its lobes are fresh, exhibiting 
their fullest development. 
In the evening of the same day the filaments are straightened out above the perigone, the anthers 
begin to open at the upper and lower ends, as Fig. 6 shows, and then all along their commissures ; 
the style has not yet reached the length of the filaments, but the peeeonist: lobes are already wither- 
ing at tip. 
On the 2nd day the anthers are shrivelled, though quantities of pollen remain adher- [581 (3)] 
ing to them; the perigone withers more; the style in the morning is still shorter than the 
filaments, but in the evening has exceeded their length somewhat; the stigmatic lobes remain 
entirely closed. 
On the 3rd day these changes go on gradually and slowly. (Fig. 7.) 
On the 4th the style is 2 inches longer than the perigone, the lobes of which are wilted and 
twisted, while the filaments also wither; in the evening the stigmatic lobes begin to separate and 
exude some moisture. The color of the flower, which at first was greenish and sulphur-yellow, now 
is of a deeper dirty yellow. 
On the 5th day the style has reached its full development, 241~-2$ inches longer than the wilted 
perigone ; the filaments are drooping, the anthers shrivelled, much pollen yet adhering to them; the 
stigmatic lobes have separated and are covered with a large drop of sweet, glutinous stigmatic 
liquid, which causes the pollen grains that drop into it to develop their long tubes (Fig. 8). 
The drop of stigmatic fluid remains fresh and full for another and often even a third day, and 
then gradually dries up ; the functions of the flower are ended with the fertilization of the ovules 
I have not yet made mention of the abundant secretion from the nectariferous lower part (all 
the part below the insertion of the stamens) of the perigonial tube. During the several days in 
which the flowers were open the whole tube was filled to the brim with a sweetish watery liquid, of 
a slightly nauseous odor. I am not aware that such a secretion has before been observed in Agave 
flowers, and would now consider it as an abnormal phenomenon, originating under artificial circum- 
stances, had not others, whose attention I had directed to such secretion, noticed the same in other 
species. Prof. C. S. Sargent, of Cambridge, Mass., saw it in an A. yuccarfolia which bloomed there 
last winter under glass, but could not find it in two specimens of the same species which in Septem- 
ber flowered in the open air. Of greater importance, because made on a wild plant on 
its native mountains, is the observation of the Rev. E. L. Greene, who found last summer [582 (4)] 
in Southwestern New Mexico the large paniculate Agave Parryi so loaded with this liquid 
that it actually rained on him when he knocked on the stalk, or when the wind shook the panicle. 
South European botanists, who have numerous cultivated species and especially the naturalized A, 
Americana at their disposal, are in a position to investigate and experiment upon this curious 
physiological fact. Our A. Virginica exudes only a small quantity of honey in the base of the tube, 
but nothing like such a watery abundance. 
1 Buds or flowers that are kept for a while separated from the plant, such e.g. as are sent fresh by mail, become distorted, 
the ovary swells, the style lengthens, but the perigone and stamens wither even if not yet fully developed. 
