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Ta b . 6248.
AGAVE bo T T e r i.
Native of Mexico.
Nat. Ord. am a r y l l i d a c e æ.—Tribe ag a v e æ , Linn.
ag a v e , (Jacobi in Hamburg Gartenzeitung, vols. xx et seq.)
ag a v e (Littæa) Botterii; acaulis, foliis 40–50 oblongo v. oblanceolato-spathulatis
coriaceo-carnosis pallide vix glauco-viridibus medio poll. crassis facie concavis,
apice in spinam atram pungentem productis margine dentibus deltoideis
corneis fusco-nigris crebris antrorsum falcatis armatis, scapo robusto 4-pedali,
floribus geminis in spicam magnam cylindricam confertis, bracteis lanceolatis
cuspidatis, bracteolis lanceolatis parvis, perianthio viridulo infundibulari bipollicari
tubo ovario breviore, segmentis oblongo-lanceolatis diu ascendentibus,
genitalibus perianthio subduplo longioribus.
This plant was sent a long time ago from Mexico by M.
Botteri to Mr. Wilson Saunders, and I knew it for many
years in the Reigate collection. When this was dispersed it
was purchased by Mr. J. T. Peacock, with whom it flowered,
at Sudbury House, Hammersmith, in the spring of 1875. I
have not been able to refer it to any of the species described
in the elaborate monograph of the late General Von Jacobi.
It is a Littæa as regards inflorescence, and, according to his
classification, founded on characters, falls into the group
“Subcoriaceæ,” which combines the small teeth of the “Aloideæ,”
with a much thinner leaf, with the firmer texture
of the large-spined panicled species of the series of which
A. americana and Scolymus are best known representatives.
Its nearest neighbours are A. densiflora, Hook. in
Bot. Mag., t. 5006, the plant called A. Keratto, by Salmdyck
and Jacobi (which is not the original Keratto of Miller), and
A. xalapensis, Roezl; Jacobi Monog., 72, which I cannot distinguish
from A. polyacantha “Haworth,” K. Koch; but in
all these the leaves are at least five or six times as long as
broad, oblanceolate, not oblanceolate-oblong.
des c r . Leaves 40–50 in a sessile rosette, oblanceolate- or oblong-spathulate,
two feet long, six to eight inches broad above
the middle, narrowed gradually to a pungent dark-coloured
channelled spine half an inch long, and downwards to a breadth
b