Leaves 2½°—4° long, 2′—3¼′ wide, slightly or not at all contracted above the dark red lustrous base, concave, stiff, rigid, dark blue-green, rough on the lower surface, nearly smooth on the upper, with a short stout dark red-brown tip, and dark brown margins roughened by minute deciduous teeth and ultimately separating into slender dark fibres; persistent for many years, the dead leaves hanging closely appressed against the trunk below the terminal crown of closely imbricated living leaves. Flowers in March and April on slender pedicels, in dense many-flowered glabrous or puberulous panicles 2°—4° long and raised on short stout stalks; perianth 1′—2′ long, 2′—4′ in diameter when fully expanded, with narrow elongated ovate-lanceolate to ovate segments, ¼′ wide, acute, thin and delicate, furnished at apex with a conspicuous tuft of short pale hairs; filaments slightly papillose, about as long as the prismatic ovary gradually narrowed above and crowned by the deeply divided stigmatic lobes. Fruit ripening in the summer, 3′—4′ long, about 1′ thick, dark reddish brown or ultimately black, with thin succulent sweetish flesh; seeds about ⅛′ wide, nearly 1/16′ thick, with a narrow border to the rim. A tree, occasionally 25°—30° high, with a trunk sometimes 2° in diameter and numerous stout wide-spreading branches; usually smaller and often forming broad low thickets 4°—5° tall. Bark on old trunks ¼′—½′ thick, dark red-brown and broken into thin oblong plates covered by small irregular closely appressed scales. Wood light brown, fibrous, spongy, heavy, difficult to cut and work. Distribution. Shores of Matagorda Bay, southward through western Texas into Nuovo Leon, and through the valley of the Rio Grande to the eastern base of the mountains of western Texas; forming open stunted forests on the coast dunes at the mouth of the Rio Grande; farther from the coast often spreading into great impenetrable thickets. Cultivated as an ornamental plant in the gardens of central and western Texas and in other southern States, and occasionally in those of southern Europe. 3. Yucca macrocarpa Coville. Spanish Dagger. [Illustration: Fig. 108] Leaves 1½°—2° long, 1′—2′ wide, gradually narrowed from the dark red lustrous base to above the middle, rigid, concave, yellow-green, rough on the lower surface and frequently also on the upper surface, with a stout elongated dark tip, and thickened margins separated into stout gray filaments. Flowers in March and April in densely flowered sessile or short-stalked glabrous or occasionally pubescent panicles; perianth usually about 2′ long, with acuminate segments, those of the outer and inner rows nearly of the same size; stamens shorter than the elongated style. Fruit 3′—4′ long, about 1½′ thick, abruptly contracted at apex into a stout point, nearly black when fully ripe, with sweet succulent flesh; seeds about ⅓′ wide, ⅛′ thick, with a narrow border to the rim.