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201 
however, it has reached its ordinary size, it produces 
flowers; and this may be once in seventy, eighty, or a 
hundred years, as the degree of culture and measure of 
heat afforded may affect it. Several plants of the Ame- 
rican agave have blossomed in England during the last few 
years; but as, from their nature, the flowers cannot be 
frequent, public attention is sometimes invited to the cir- 
cumstance when it occurs. The leaves are full of pulpy 
matter, very spiny, and often six feet long, in some va- 
rieties they are striped with yellow, white, or red. The 
flowers, which are of a greenish-yellow colour, continue in 
bloom three months, and crown a stem which rises thirty 
feet in height. The agave, owing to this lofty stem, pre- 
sents one of the most gigantic specimens of plants which, 
in familiar language, we term flowers, in distinction from 
shrubs and trees. Our forefathers named this plant the 
sea - ayegreene, because of the evergreen nature of its 
leaves. 
There are many species of agave in British gardens and 
hothouses. They are, however, very similar to each other 
in general appearance ; and it is thought that travellers 
who describe them very often confound one with another. 
One kind of agave (Agave foetida) exhibits a striking 
rapidity of growth. M. A. Richard says of it : “ This 
plant, which I have seen covering the rocks along the 
shores of the Mediterranean, in the Gulf of Genoa, when 
it flowers shoots out a stalk which sometimes acquires a 
height of thirty feet in the space of thirty or forty days, 
or even less. As it thus grows about a foot in a day, it 
may be conceived to be in a manner possible that its suc- 
cessive development should be perceptible to the general 
observer.’’ 
The agave, although in its wild state a native of coun- 
tries in or near the tropics, will grow in America, either 
in the low valley or upon the highest mountain ; and it 
will vegetate in regions where the thermometer is below 
the freezing-point, or flourish in the most burning part of 
the globe. Its tall stem is often reared upon the most 
arid spots of Africa; and at the Cape of Good Hope it 
forms an excellent fence for fields and gardens, offering 
an impervious barrier to the intrusion of man or animal. 
These hedges are also common in the West Indies; and 
