— 34 — 
ADDITIONAL REMARKS. 
The highest trunks of cultivated Agaves which I find noticed 4 , 
are 3-4 feet high and 3-4 inches in diameter; the thickest one- 
was 14 inches through, but less high. I have met with no account 
of the size they may attain in their native country. f 
The scape of A. Americana is said to measure sometimes 36 
feet in height. 
The flowers of Agave are always more or less erect and of a 
coarser, calycine texture, while those of Yucca are pendulous and 
corolline. 
NOTICE TO BOTANISTS. 
I wish to direct the attention of botanists, who have the oppor¬ 
tunity to observe the development of these plants, to the following 
questions: 
At what hour of the day do the anthers of the different species 
burst and begin to shed their pollen, when do they become en¬ 
tirely effete, and in what state is then the style? How long after¬ 
wards and when does the style of the same flower attain its full 
development, and when and how much do the stigmatic lobes 
open or spread, and when does the stigmatic liquid fill the cavity 
of the style and cover the inside of the lobes? — I have above 
given an account of these physiological processes in A . Virgi -■ 
nica ; the only reference to them in literature which I can find 
is made by Jacobi, Ag. 310, where he says of an Agave of the 
second section, that the full development of the style and the 
-separation and partial spreading of its lobes takes place only after 
the stamens have faded, which, as far as it goes, fully coincides 
with my observations. His further remark, that the stamens are 
not inflexed in the buds off that species (A. Goeppertiana ), is 
unquestionably erroneous. Of the floral development of the 
Agaves of the third section nothing at all seems to be known. 
I wish also to direct the attention of observers to the time and 
nature of the secretion of honey in the lower part of the flower- 
tube. 
The inflorescence of those Agaves of the second section which 
are said to bear 1 or 3 or 6-8 flowers in a fascicle requires fur¬ 
ther investigation. 
