286 



FLORA AND SYLVA. 



rigid, evenly and stiffly recurved, becoming 

 i foot long and an inch or more wide, purple 

 tinged, entire or slightly rough-margined at 

 base,notpungent. Flowers and fruit unknown. 

 A garden plant ascribed to Mexico, which 

 when small is suggestive in appearance of a lily 

 because of its crowded arching, not at all con- 

 cave leaves ; quite unlike any other Yucca, and 

 perhaps not of this genus. No record exists of 

 the source of the plants of this species culti- 

 vated at the Missouri Botanical Garden, but 

 they are believed to have come from Northern 

 Mexico, many years ago. 



T. aloifolia (Linnasus). — Is a low slender 

 tree, somewhat short-branched aboveand often 

 cespitoselysuckering. Leaves flat, rather thick, 

 rigid, denticulate on the margin, very pungent- 

 ly brown-pointed. Inflorescence usually close 

 to the leaves, compactly panicled. Flowers 

 creamy, tinged with green or purple toward 

 the base; ovary shortly stipitate; style short, 

 not contracted, oblong or alittle tumid, abrupt- 

 ly starting from the ovary. Fruit oblong-pris- 

 matic, nearly black, coreless, with dark purple 

 pulp ; seeds glossy, round or oval, often acute 

 at one end. Virgin Isles, Jamaica, eastern coast 

 of Mexico, the Bermudas, Atlantic and Gulf 

 States southward ; and occasionally escaping 

 from cultivation as far inland as Louisiana. The 

 principal forms of this species, which has been 

 cultivated in Europe since 1605 and which 

 differs from all other Yuccas in its stipitate 

 ovary and coreless purple-pulped fruit, com- 

 monly formed without Pronuba aid, may be dis- 

 tinguished as follows : — purpurea, a purplish- 

 leaved garden form, perhaps more properly 

 placed under var. arcuata: marginata, a garden 

 form with the leaves green at centre, bordered 

 and striped with various shades of yellow and 

 white, and often tinged with red at least when 

 young. No doubt separable into at least three 

 forms capable of being fixed by selection : — 

 one with yellow margin, one with added white 

 stripes, and one with a fairly persistent addi- 

 tional line of red on the back near the border: 

 tricolor, a garden sport of the preceding with 

 a median yellow or white band bordered with 

 green, and tinged with red when young. Nei- 

 ther of these variegated forms come true to 

 seed, and the intensity of the variegation, par- 

 ticularly the red, is apt to change with age 

 and season: arcuata, is short-stemmed from a 



prostrate candex. Leaves less than an inch 

 wide, 1 to 2 feet long, smooth, the margins less 

 denticulate than usual. A garden form doubt- 

 less derived from the Carolina coast region : 

 Draconis, with trunk branching above, rather 

 tall, leaves broad and long, more flexible and 

 somewhat arched, less pungent. As far as it is 

 known to me T. Draconis is properly placed un- 

 der aloifolia, with the differential characters 

 given. It appears to have been cultivated in 

 Europe since 1 605, but it is not impossible that 

 much of the earlier Draconis, like that of gar- 

 dens to-day, was T. elephantipes, the fruit and 

 flower characters of which are quite different 

 from those of T. aloifolia, though the foliage 

 is of the same general type : conspicua, with 

 trunks clustered, leaves broad and lax, recurv- 

 ing, softly green pointed. A form of the pre- 

 ceding, frequent in European gardens and said 

 by Baker to be represented by wild plants from 

 the Pacific slope of Mexico: tenu folia, resem- 

 bles var. arcuata in habit, the leaves frequently 

 falcate, often purplish with somewhat rough- 

 ened dorsal ridges and very sharp but fine mar- 

 ginal toothing. A cultivated form, doubtless 

 of the coast region, and found by the writer 

 escaped along the shady roadside at Vicks- 

 bourg, Mississippi. Menandi, a sport, seeming- 

 ly of f. tricolor, with the rigidly, much-recurved 

 leaves about 1 foot long, one quarter to half 

 an inch wide, somewhat rough on both margin 

 and dorsal ridges, of a deep green, with yellow 

 and occasionally red median band or lines nar- 

 row on the upper surface but, as in form tri- 

 color, occupying a large part of the lower sur- 

 face. Purchased under the name T. quadricolor. 

 Tucatana, trunks clustered from the base, as 

 much as 20 feet high. Leaves rather flexible. 

 Inflorescence tomentose. Stamens shorter than 

 in the type. Yucatan. From all of the other 

 baccate Yuccas, T. alo folia, in the comprehen- 

 sive sense, differs obviously in its evidently 

 stalked ovary and coreless purple-fleshed fruit. 

 Its geographical distribution leads to the con- 

 clusion that it may have originated in the east- 

 ern islands of the West Indian group, spread- 

 ing, by aid of ocean currents, to the Atlantic 

 states and Bermudas, and, by way of Jamaica, 

 to the Mexican coast, isolation on the penin- 

 sula of Yucatan having given rise to the marked 

 variety named after that country. W. T. 

 (To be continued.) 



