From the Haitian name for an unrelated species of Manihot (Euphorbiaceae).

Commemorates Antoine Francois de Fourcray a French Chemist (1755–1809).

Plants stemless to arborescent, rosettes dying after monocarpic flowering. Leaves long-lived, fleshy, fibrous, linear-lanceolate to oblanceolate, spine-tipped. Inflorescence a terminal panicle, bulbiferous. Flowers bisexual, campanulate, white. Sepals and petals similar, fused at base. Stamens 6, included; filaments thickened. Ovary inferior, 3-locular. Fruit a dehiscent capsule. Seeds compressed, black.

Grown for the architectural spiky forms. In subtropical areas F. selloa and F. foetida are cultivated and both are naturalised to some degree.

About 20 species in C and S America.

Seeds or bulbils.

Flowers with stamens included and inferior ovary.

Drummond (1907), Forster (1986, 1987), Alvarez de Zayas (1996).

Source: Forster, P. (2005). Agavaceae. In: Spencer, R.. Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 5. Flowering plants. Monocotyledons. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.