79° 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in their adopted habitats. Such,- then, is a general suggestion of 

 the position this plant group holds in our American flora. Let us 

 now outline the relations of its three members to each other and 

 to other flowering plants in general. 



It is worthy of note that the three types referred to bear no 

 close relationship to one another ; on the contrary, they stand in 

 distinct and rather parallel classes, and each respectively among 

 the most perfect developments of its class. The cacti, on the one 



Fig. 4. — Agave Salmiana in Blossom, and Agave Americana in Foreground. 



hand, hold a place among the most highly organized of dicotyle- 

 dons ; while the agaves and yuccas belong in the other great class 

 of angiospermous flowering plants, nearly parallel, but lower 

 ranked — the monocotyledons. Further, the agaves and yuccas 

 stand in nearly parallel divisions among monocotyledons — the 

 agaves among the epigynous-flowered monocotyls, typified by the 

 amaryllis family ; the yuccas among the hypogynous-flowered 



