TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Fig. 6. In the Pajaeito Mountains. 



Mr. J. C. Blumer collected it in the same region; and this season when 

 Mr. James H. Ferriss found it in the Gruija Mountains. The little 

 plant here illustrated is the one sent in by Mr. Blumer, which in transit 

 had begun to develop a flower stem and which, flowering in May of last 

 year and fruiting in the following summer, has given the first oppor- 

 tunity for a botanist to observe these phenomena and to see in perfec- 

 tion its diminutive flowers which, scarcely three quarters of an inch 

 long, led its describer, Dr. Torrey, to name it Agave parviflora. 



Like those of many agaves and yuccas and some other genera the 

 solid stem and thick leaf bases of this plant contain a saponifying 

 substance which has won for it, as for these various plants, the name 

 amole, or soap-weed. Its thick, rounded leaves, like those of a com- 

 paratively few other species in the genus are beautifully marked by 

 irregular stripes of pure white, due to bits of cuticle torn from other 

 leaves as the central bud or cogollo opened. When Dr. Engelmann 



