Mulford, A: STUDY OF THE AGAVES OF THE US

Excerpt from A Study of the Agaves of the United StatesLeichtlinia protuberans Ross, A. Protuberans Engelm., has been placed between the genera Polianthes and Agave, on account of its coni cal ovary protruding into the perianth.On July 29th, I collected a monstrous in¿orescence of A. Applanata Parryi, in the mountains above Pleasant Valley, a few miles from Fort Bayard. The top of the scape had been broken by some accident, and the plant had made an efiert to produce ¿owers on a low branch of the in¿orescence. These ¿owers were in a thick mass close to the main axis. All were imperfect or distorted. Some were grown together. The segments in nearly all cases were greatly broadened and frequently thickened. The filaments also were broad and in some cases showed a distinct reversion to the petaloid character. In some ¿owers it was di¿icult to tell whether a certain organ represented a segment or a fila ment, but in the larger and better developed ¿owers, there was usually an equal number of each, and this number varied from six to five, four, three, and even two. In one large ¿ower the style was irregularly four lobed, and the stigma, three-lobed, one lobe being much larger than the other two. The ovary was usually represented by a short thick mass of tissue with little or no difierentiation. Mr. Webber writes me of finding a monstrous Agave ¿ower upon a plant of what I suppose was A. Rigida sisalana. This ¿ower had stamens and pistils perfectly developed, but was without any ovary difierentiation, and was found growing from a cluster of leaves of the bulb.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.