20 MEMOIRS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, VOL. XI. 
In agreement with Humboldt’s Venezuelan usage, on Puerto Rico the native Agave is 
commonly called ‘‘cocuiza,” while the associated Furcraea is known as ‘‘maguey.”’ The practice 
of roasting and eating the trunks of Agave, which Oviedo found prevalent in the Venezuelan 
region—comparable with the ‘‘mezcal” use made of other species in the Mexican table-land— 
still persists, and has led to a curious transformation of the native word “‘cocui” into the Dutch 
‘“‘koeki”’ on Curag¢ao, where, as Dr. Boldingh tells me, the sweet roasted substance of A. vivipara 
is known as “‘koeki indian”’ or Indian cake. 
Though not known to occur on even the coastwise islands, A. Cocuz is included in this 
account for completeness, since it is the only known continental representative of the Viviparae, 
as well as the only described Huagave native to South America. It also promises unusual 
historical interest for students of its genus because it is the plant which, on the Arayan main- 
land, furnished Oviedo? with the name ‘‘maguei” or “‘maguey”’ which the Spaniards have 
fixed permanently as a popular generic name for the larger agaves that in Mexico were known as 
metl, the Haitian “‘maguey” of the same writer apparently being A. antillarum. ‘The word 
maguey, judging from Oviedo’s account, designated the flower stalk or articles made from it as 
well as the plant itself; and in Venezuela the scape, which would be called a “‘quiote”’ in Mexico, 
is still called a ‘‘maguey,’’ as I am informed by Sr. Zuloaga. 
Agave petiolata n. sp. 
Plate 8. 
Agave lurida HAMELBERG, Verslag. Geschied-, Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkundig Genootsch., Curacao, vol. 2, p. 24, 1898. 
Caulescent, the trunk under 1 m. high, suckering?. Leaves blue-glaucous, lanceolate, 
rather abruptly contracted into a long neck at base, gradually acute, about 17 by 110 cm.; spine 
chestnut, granular-roughened below, smooth and polished toward the end, more or less flexuous, 
acicular, round-grooved to or beyond the middle, 3-4 by 25-60 mm., shortly decurrent; prickles 
purplish chestnut, 15-30 or even 50 mm. apart, 5 mm. long, straight or variously curved, nar- 
rowly triangular from half-round bases 5-10 mm. wide sometimes raised on abrupt green 
prominences between which the margin is nearly straight. Inflorescence paniculate; pedicels 
scarcely 5 mm. long. Flowers 35-40 mm. long; ovary 15 mm. long, shorter than the perianth, 
fusiform; tube open, 5 mm. deep; segments 3 by 15 mm., about equaling the ovary; filaments 
inserted nearly in the throat, 30 mm. long, twice as long as the segments. Fruit and bulbils 
unknown. 
Leeward Islands. Known only from Curacao. 
Specimens examined: Curagao (Boldingh, A 8, 1909, the type; 5624, 1910; Ecker, 1909). 
A curious plant, in arming suggesting some of the Mexican species grown for pulque. 
Agave evadens n. sp. 
Plates 9, 10, and 116. 
? A. polyacantha Baker, Handbook Amaryllid., p. 183, 1888.—Harr, Rept. Trinidad Gard., 1890 (see Gard. Mag., 
vol. 35, p. 160, 1892), as to Trinidad and the Bocas Islands. 
2 A. polyantha Dovae, Rept. Fiber Invest. (U. S. Dept. Agric.), No. 9, p. 5, 1897. 
2 A. vivipara Hart, Rept. Trinidad Gard., 1890. 
? A. americana JouNsTON, Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 34, pp. 197 and 274” 1909. 
Shortly caulescent, somewhat suckering?. Leaves narrowly oblanceolate, gradually acute, 
openly concave or somewhat plicate or with inrolled margins above; spine apparently short and 
rather stout; prickles rather close together, the intervening margin nearly straight. Inflores- 
cence slender, laxly panicled at the end only, with few ascending few-flowered branches. 
Pedicels rather slender, scarcely 10 mm. long. Flowers about 45 mm. long; ovary 25 mm. 
long, somewhat exceeding the perianth, oblong-fusiform; tube open, about 4 mm. deep; seg- 
ments 4 by 20 mm., shorter than the ovary; filaments inserted nearly in the throat, 35 mm. 
long, scarcely twice as long as the segments. Fruit and bulbils unknown. 
Leeward Islands. The “‘langue & boeuf” of Trinidad and perhaps of Tobago and the 
Bocas Islands. 
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1 Hist. Gen. Indias, vol. 4, p. 600, published only in 1855. 
