THE AMERICAN ALOE. 
509 
THE AMERICAN ALOE. 
Theee is a popular notion respecting the 
Amerian Aloe, that it blooms but once in 
a hundred years ; but this, like many other 
popular notions, is an error, though based 
upon a semblance of truth. The facts are 
these ; — the climate of England does not serve 
to keep the American Aloe in a state of rapid 
development ; and the treatment that it gets 
rather retards it than otherwise. Thus it 
stands from year to year with but little percep- 
tible change, until at last, under the influence 
of some extraordinary check, such as a tho- 
rough drying, enough to kill any less enduring 
subject, up starts the heart, elongating into 
a flower stem, which going through its allotted 
functions, perishes, and with it the plant that 
nurtured it, leaving behind a progeny of 
suckers which spring from its roots. Now 
this fate awaits the plant at some 
period or other of its existence, 
and it can happen but once ; and 
just according as the circumstances 
under which the plant3 are placed 
accelerate or retard this final result, 
so will the plant bloom at an earlier 
or later period from the time of its 
infancy, or original development, 
as a sucker from some former flow- 
ering plant. No doubt in many 
cases, the plants which bloom in 
English gardens are veritably a 
hundred years old ; some probably 
attain even a greater age. 
During the present autumn, one 
of these remarkable plants has been 
flowering in the ancient botanic 
garden of the Society of Apothe- 
caries, at Chelsea. This plant, how- 
ever, is not the common American 
Aloe, Agave dmericana, but a dif- 
ferent species, supposed to be the 
Agave mexicana. We are indebted 
for the following account of this 
plant to Mr. Moore, the Curator of 
the Chelsea garden : — 
" The general aspect of this 
plant, before it gave evidence of 
flowering, was not dissimilar, to 
that of Agave americana, but in 
its flowering state it proves quite 
different from that species, espe- 
cially in the arrangement of its 
inflorescence, which, instead of 
forming a pyramidal head, with ho- 
rizontal branches, has the branches 
ascending and forming a dense 
head, which becomes thicker and 
broader upwards. There seems 
little doubt that this plant has been 
reared, and probably from its very 
infancy, in this garden ; and it is 
therefore to be regretted that no record of its 
origin, nor any historical particulars respecting 
it, appear to have been preserved. Under 
these circumstances, it is impossible to form 
even a conjecture as to the actual age of the 
plant. But considering that it has naturally 
a somewhat less massive appearance than the 
common Agave, it would appear to be a full- 
sized specimen, the spread of its leaves being 
about seven feet, their height four feet, and 
the height of the flowering stem, measuring 
from the base of the plant, nineteen feet six 
inches. This stem has twenty-four branches, 
and these are again subdivided into eight 
secondary branches, terminated each by a 
cluster of flowers ; the number of flowers may 
be estimated at about 4,000 ; thus, 21x8 x 24 
= 4,032. The expanded flowers are found 
on examination, and especially when confined, 
