Lucca. 
51 6 Liltaccw 
Y. gloridsu, several feet in height and more or less branchea. 
The campanulate perianth is 6-parted, with the segments 
nearly equal in size, including 6 stamens whose filaments are 
dilated, becoming broader upwards. Ovary 3-celled, with 3 
sessile stigmas. Capsule hexayonal, many-seeded. This genus, 
with the Aloes and two or three other genera, constitutes a 
well-marked tribe of the Lilidecw. The name is its Peruvian 
appellation. Although there are perhaps a score or more of 
species in cultivation, only about six or eight with their 
varieties ure generally known. 
There are three tolerably distinct groups, founded on the 
characters of the leaves. 
(1.) Margin of the adult leaves distinctly serrulate. 
(2.) Margin of the leaves filameutose. 
(3.) Margin of the leaves entire, neither filamentose noi 
serrulate. 
To the first pronp belong two or three species which are 
not so hardy and do not flower so freely as the others. 
1. VY. aloifolia, having a thick stem which attains a height 
of 10 fect or more, and usually simple in this country on 
account of its not flowering. Leaves numerous, ascending, 18 
to 24 inches long and about an inch broad, dark green or 
slightly glaucous, narrowed above the dilated base, with a hard 
reddish-brown point. 
2. YY. Preculecdna.—aA very distinct and handsome plant 
from Texas, not yet much known in England, though it has 
frequently flowered in France. It is also canlescent, and the 
fully developed loaves are from 3 to 4 fect long by 2 to 3 
broad, dark green, strongly mucronate, and regularly serrulate. 
The Filamentose scrics includes several of the hardier species 
of our gardens whose flowers in early Summer are by no means 
rare, a season seldom passing without producing them, even 
from quite young plants. Those commonly cultivated in the 
open air are all stemless. 
3. V0 filanentosa.—One of the most familiar spevics, popu- 
larly known as Adam’s Necdle-and-Thread. The leaves are 
very numervnus, in a dense rosctte, from a foot to 2 feet long 
and 1 to 2 inches broad, bright green, glaucous, slightly 
corinccous, not sharp-pointed, spreading and at length reflexed. 
Seape 5 to 6 fect high, much branched; flowers numerous 
about 2 inches deep. There is also a pretty variegated variety 
Y. stricta is very like this, but smaller in all its parts. 
