A case of apogamy with Dasylirion acrotrichum Zucc

In the summer of 1904 a specimen of Dasylirion acrotrichum Zucc. was in bloom in the Utrecht Botanical Garden. The home of this tree-like Liliacea is in Mexico; on a short stem it bears a bundle of flat leaves wit thorny margins. Although the plant is pretty often cultivated in European botanical gardens it is very seldom seen in bloom. Hence constant attention was paid to the here mentioned specimen. The inflorescence was two metres long; the principal axis was ramified and had a great number of steeply erected lateral axes in the axils of bracts; each of these carried some 60 to 150 unstalked female flowers. Dasylirion is dioecious so that male flowers were entirely absent. Each flower had a perianth consisting of six green leaflets and a pistil; this latter consisted of a triangular ovary with a short style and three stigmas. The ovary was unilocular and had on its bottom three ovules.