6 
& spines, are very troublesome to the foot traveller; they are, however, 
“ of some use to the Mexicans, who employ the strong fibres they 
& contain in making coarse ropes. The plant is known to the people 
cha 
e a 
According to Torrey, in Botany of Mexican oe ~~ 
g, & This species, by Baker, in 
Gardeners’ Chronicle, Vol. VII. (new series), p. 527, is placed under 
Agave Poselgerii, Salmdyck. Engelmann on the other hand looked 
Poselgerit and A. p Pa aae as —— nag — 
heteracantha, Zucc., and described them under that n Hen 
may look upon Aga ve Lechuguilla, Torrey, A. Foljet, Bilndjek, 
and A. heteracantha, Zucc., as synonymous names representing one 
and the same plant; and of these Agave heteracantha, Zucc., has 
y no means restricted to this species. Sereno Watson (Proceedings o 
the American Academy, Vol. XI., p. 16) mentions “ Lechuguilla 
“ Lechigilla” as the native name “of Agave guttata and A. Corie 
different as possible from A. heteracantha. It is very possible, there- 
fore, that the name Lechuguilla, like Kerrato in the West Indies, has 
a wide stretch of usage in certain parts of Mexico and the United 
States, and that it is applied indiscriminately to various species of 
ave 
There is at Kew a very large collection = oe Agaves, in which 
are feprecented most of the species here co 
By the courtesy of Messrs. Death and Ellwood, ‘En rine, eee 
we have been enabled to extract fibre from the lea s of Agave 
heteracantha, Zuce.; A. xylacantha, Salmdyck ; A. horside: Lemaire ; 
A. Kerchovei, Lemaire; A. lophantha, Schiede ; ; A. univittata, 
Haworth ; -and A, multilineata, Baker. All these yield a coarse and 
somewhat rigid fibre, but the fibre of A. heteracantha, allowing for the 
age of the plant, comes 1 Sogn to the commereial fibre known in London 
as Mexican fibre or 
All these specion. i may be mentioned, belong to a distinct set of 
Agaves, the leaves of which are characterized by a continuous horny 
margin, and hence placed together by Baker under the group Mar- 
ginatae, of which the distictive characters are, —‘ edge of the leaf 
“ furnished all the way down from es top to the bottom with a 
“ distinct horny border, of the same texture as the teeth.” 
The species of Agave which yield Sisal hemp and fibres vattabid = 
rope making and weaving, are discussed in the Bulletin for Mar 
[No. 3, 1887]. Such fibres are ordinarily 3 feet, and often 5 ind 

may be mentioned here that what Baker described as Agave heteracantha, 
Wars: vm Gardeners’ Chronicle, Vol. VII. (new series), p. 369, has been proved 
S be E ana? and it is 2 hy him to describe it under the name of 
agave n 
