— 2 9 — 
quen (Schott).or Henequen (Perrine), and distinguish, as Dr. 
Schott reports, the Taxci (Yashki) as furnishing the best quality 
and the Sacci (Sacqui) with the largest quantity of fibre ; Chu - 
cumci , larger than the last, produces coarser fibre; Babci has 
fine fibre but in smaller quantity ; Citamci , with small narrow 
leaves and poor fibre, stands probably nearest to the wild plant. 
Dr. Perrine mentions another variety, Istle , evidently the Ixtli 
of Karwinski, as furnishing a fine fibre called Pita . These plants 
yield a return of leaves when four or five years old, and may last 
50 or 60 years under proper management; the flowering scape is 
cut off as soon as 4 feet high, when, evidently, axillary branches 
continue the growth of the plant, which is thus kept so long 
alive by being prevented from flowering. 
The trunk of the wild plant of Yucatan—-which I refer with 
little doubt to Miller’s old A. rigida — is 1-2 feet high, leaves 
11- 2 feet long and as many inches wide, contracted above the 
broader base and widest about the middle ; lateral teeth f or even 
1 inch apart, mostly straight, from a broad base 1-2 lines - long, 
rather unequal, with smaller ones interspersed, dark brown ; ter¬ 
minal spine 1 inch long, if lines in diameter, straight, or often 
somewhat twisted, terete, scooped out at base but not channelled, 
dark red-brown, a dark corneous margin extending down the leaf- 
edge for several inches and bearing the uppermost teeth. Scape 
12- 15 feet high ; flowers pale yellowish-green, 2\-2\ inches long, 
perigon 16, tube 6-7, lobes 9-10 lines long; stamens inserted 
about the middle of the tube, “blood-red upwards,” 1 inch longer 
than the perigon ; anthers 10-105 lines long ; styles at last as long 
as stamens. 
A. Ixtli , which in 1872 flowered in the gardens of the late Mr. 
Thuret at Antibes, is entirely similar, flowers of the same dimen¬ 
sions, anthers a little larger (uplines long); capsules, which 
grow with the bulbs on the same panicle, oval, over 2 inches 
long, -i h wide, very short stipitate ; seeds uncommonly large, 4^ 
lines high, with a ventral hilum (in many other Agaves I find 
the hilum more basal, a character which may be of some value). 
I believe this is the first time that the flowers of the Ixtli have 
been described ; they identify the plant with the old A. rigida , 
or at least the above-described Chelem. A. Karwinskii , Zucc. 
is probably the same thing. 
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BOTANICAL 
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