Descriptive Flora 



67 



AMARYLLIDACEAE. Amaryllis Family. 

 LEUCOJACEAE. Amaryllis Family. In Small's Flora. 



Manfreda maculosa ( Jacobi) Rose. Wild Tuberose. Amole Plant. 



Soap Plant. 



Lily-like plant with leaves clustered in a rosette close to 

 the ground, fleshy, thick and spongy, concave their full length, 

 and mottled with darker green or purplish spots. Flower stalks 

 single, rising out of the rosette of leaves, 2 to 4' tall, and blossom- 

 ing on about the upper third of the stalk which branches above 

 similar to the Yuccas. Flowers waxy, resembling a cultivated 

 tuberose, only much larger, greenish white at first and turning 

 pink and reddish-purple with age. Perianth 6-parted. Stamens 

 6, with fleshy filaments that turn red with age and with tips 

 terminating in narrow anthers about long. Fruit a several 

 seeded, oval pod. Blossoms in late May and June. Grows in 

 sandy soil. Rare here. Roots are used as a substitute for soap 

 by Mexicans and Indians. To prepare for use, take root, cut in 

 pieces and soak in water for several days. Both water and root 

 may be used as soap. 



Agave americana L. Century Plant. 6 ' Agave. ' ' " Maguey. 1 7 

 A Yucca-like plant having a mammoth rosette of enormous 

 gray and blue-green, stiff and spongy, coarsely spine-toothed 

 leaves thick as boards, rising straight from the bud of the great 

 rosette, turning back as the plant grows and showing on their 

 smooth curved inner surface the lovely print of the lace-edge 

 pattern of the inner leaf margins that were pressed against it. 

 A single giant stalk rises out of the leaves, 10 to 20', is branched 

 above into fan-shaped flower clusters, that resemble big pieces 

 of honeycomb at a distance, at right angles to the main stalk. 

 Flowers cream colored, turned upward and never drooping as in 

 the Yuccas. Plants blossom at about the age of twenty years, 

 fruit and die, leaving many offsets which come to maturity 

 almost yearly. Blossoms the last part of May, thru June. 

 Escaped from gardens. Cultivated for ornament. The plant 



