Furcraea Vent.
Robust, succulent to leathery, arborescent or acaulescent perennials. Trunk unbranched, tall or short (or 0). Leaves in a dense rosette, fleshy or leathery, margins with conspicuous well-spaced spines and entire between, or with minute close teeth throughout. Inflorescence a large terminal pyramidal panicle; scape tall. Flowers bisexual, whitish or greenish-white, numerous along branches, solitary or in small fascicles of 2-3, with scarious bracts; flowers often replaced by bulbils; segments connate in short tube, lobes spreading. Stamens usually < segments, inserted at base; filaments with cushion-like swelling at base; anthers dorsifixed. Ovary inferior, 3-locular; style 3-angled and thickened below, stigma small; ovules many in each locule. Seeds flat, black. Some spp. reproducing only by bulbils and not forming seed. Spp. c. 20, of tropical America. Adventive sp. 1.
F. longaeva Karw. et. Zucc. has been once collected in N. Auckland growing wild in grass at Riverhead State Forest Headquarters-N.Z. Forest Service, 20.11.1957 (CHR 122353). It is easily distinguished from F. foetida by the closely sharply serrate leaf-margins and pubescent inflorescence-branches.
