Weber Alb. 



Lyon, April 10, 1877 



Ree. April 28 

 Ans. May 1 1 



My very honored colleague, 



A few days ago you must have reeeived a small white box containing two dried flowers of an 

 Agave and a living bud abnormally transformed into a flower. I did not have time to include a 

 letter in this small shipment that I wanted to expedite without delay, so that the young flowering 

 bud would arrive with sufficient freshness. This plant also has the dried flowers, which come 

 from the Agave Verschaffelti. Several of these have flowered in Lyon in 1876; today I would like 

 to send you a few words. 



The public garden of the city of Lyon ( called Park of the Golden Head) owns at least 20 adult 

 samples of this Agave that constitute most of the different varieties as seen by the shape of their 

 thorns. However they also constitute a family that one can recognize in the blink of an eye, as 

 belonging to the same species. Each year one has several of them that flower, and their flowering 

 affects this particular shape, that I already have mentioned to you in my previous letter. I have 

 only seen this type in that species and in the Agave macrocantha ofZuccarioni. This I have 

 already cultivated under the name of Agave Besseriana in a number of varieties. This 

 inflorescence is one that is particularly narrow, fusiform and sometimes nearly specific, 

 presenting a different shape with panicles that one can see only in the large Agave. 



In this regard I would like to make you notice that one can distinguish three types on 

 inflorescence in all the paniculated Agave ( of which I know the flowers): 



1) The first shape is the most common, the one we find in the Agave americana: a thyrseform 

 panicle; with secondary branches and tertiary and even quarternary subbranches. The 

 photograph of an Agave americana, that I send you, shows a good inflorescence that we also 

 find in the Agave lurida, rigida, etc. I had some beautiful drawings made with the analysis of a 

 new species ( Agave Guedeneyri) that I observed in 1874 at Mr. Guedeneyri's home. 



2) The second shape is the one we know as Agave Shawii: non ramified secondary branches, 

 flowers bunched at the end of these branches. Among the large species of our collections we find 

 this inflorescence in the Agave Salmiana and the Agave Jacobiana ( species quite similar to the 

 previous one). I also observed one year ago in Lyon on a very rare species, Agave Vandervinneni. 

 I am sending you drawings of the Agave Salmiana that flowered in St. Germain close to Paris in 

 1872, in which this type of inflorescense is very commonly seen. A species very close to it, the 

 Agave mitraeformis, is ready to flower any moment in Lyon to offer, without doubt the same 

 type of inflorescence. 



