ROSE MEXICAN AND CENTRAL AMERICAN PLANTS. 



91 



About the year 1846, we received from Mr. Repper, of the Real del Monte Com- 

 pany's establishment, Mexico, some remarkable plants in the form of tubers, ;i fool 

 and half long, and nearly as high aboveground, the surface of which is formed by a 

 number of wrinkled tubercles, slightly elevated, and somewhal circinately wrinkled; 

 from a few of which appeared nuts of rigid, subulate leaves, I to 2 feel long, in form 

 and texture resembling those of some Dasylirium. The general aspecl ol the tubers 

 remind one of the well-known "Elephant's- foot" of South Africa, or ol 

 remarkable I >iosc< >reae which we cultivate from Mexico. These remained dormanl for 

 some years, but one of them has lately produced more copious tufts of foliage and 

 panicles of flowers; and precisely accord (the female flowers are, however, wanting to 

 our plants) with the Dasylirium Hartweaianum of Zuccarini, which Hartweg sent 

 from Zacatecas, in Mexico; and a Dasylirium of Mr. Charles Wrighl ("Coll. N.Mex. 

 L861 2"), n. L918, also seems to be identical; bul neither of these collectors has 

 made a note on the nature of the plant, so that whether we are to consider this 

 tuber as the normal condition of t lie stem or caudex of this species, or whether we 

 arc to look upon it as an accidental c Election or congeries of united -terns (a kind of 

 monstrosity >, still remains a doubt in our minds. All the Das} liria yel known to us 

 have separate, unbranched, and distinct stems, more or less elongated, as in the 

 caulescent species of Agave, and as may be seen in one figures of two of the species 

 of this remarkable genus, at our Tab. 5030 and Tab. 5041. The flowers of t he pani- 

 cles develop themselves very slow ly, and the w ithered stalks and branches remain 

 a long time attached to the trunk. Mr. Bentham compares this plant with the 

 Cordyline longifoliaoi II. B. K.: but the very large, almost sheathing bracteas, rather 

 than leaves ( which latter do not appear in the figure given by Humboldt), and the 

 widely different ramification of the panicle, and the acuminated sepals, indicate 

 something very different. 



NOLINA. 



The genus Nolina as first described contained hut one species, viz. 

 N~. georgiana, which therefore is the type of the genus. After exclud- 



Piq.5.— Fruit of Nolina altamiranoana. '/.side 

 view : i,, cross section showing seed in one 

 cell and undeveloped ovules in two. 



Both scale 2. 



Fig. 6.— Fruit of Nolina elegans. 

 a, Side view; b, cross section show- 

 ing seeds in two cells and unde- 

 veloped ovules in all. Both scale 2. 



ing from Nolina those species which belong to Beaucarnea we have 

 left t went v species, as follows: 



Nolina altamiranoana Rose, Proc. \ai. Mus. 29: 438. L905. Figure 5. 



Nolina beldingi Brandegee, Zoe 1: 305. L890. 



Nolina bigelovii (Ton.) 8. Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 14:247. L879. 



Nolina brittoniana Nash, Bull. Torr. Club 22: L58. L895. 



Nolina elegans Rose* sp. nov. Figi RE 6. 



Probably acaulescent; leaves 50 to 60 cm. long, 9 to 12 mm. broad, stiff, yellow- 

 ish, both surfaces sn th, the margins serrulate; inflorescence a narrow panicle; 



1 to 3 meters long; flowering branches ascending; bractlets scarious, their margins 

 lacerate; pedicels 8 to 9 nun. long, jointed a little above their base; sepals obtuse, 

 scarious-margined; fruit strongly 3-lobed, 7 to 10 mm. broad, broader than high, the 

 walls thin hut not bursting before the ripening of the seeds. 



This species is probably common in the mountains of Chihuahua, Durango, and 

 Zacatecas. 



" Not. in \ Michx. Fl. 1: l'd;. iso;;. 



