404 
joints broad, over 30 cm. long, 5 to 7.5 em. broad, sometimes twisted, 
the younger ribs compressed as if winged, with almost naked areol 
2.5 em. apart: spines 2 to 4, blackish, rigid, subrecurved, 2 to 4 mm. 
long, lowest longest: flowers white, 20 cm. broad: fruit naked, scarlet, 
“size and form of a goose’s egg.”—Type unknown. 
In Key West and the West Indies, and extending in Mexico from 
Vera Cruz to the Isthmus of Darien. 
Specimens examined: VERA Cruz (Bourgeau 2488, region of 
Orizaba): ISTHMUS OF DARTEN (Schott of 1858): also cultivated in 
Hort. Monaco in 1857 and 1858; in Koenig’s Gard. in 1866; in Harvard 
Bot. Gard. in 1871, 1873, 1882; growing in Mo. Bot. Gard. in 1893. 
Climbing over bushes and rooting at the joints. The surface of the older joints 
is often covered with a woody crust, and the very old ones become altogether woody. 
++ ++ Ribs 7 to 12: spines few (8 to 12). 
59. Cereus boeckmanni Otto; Salm, Cact. Hort. Dyek. 217 (1850). 
Tall, bright-green, subeylindrical, 18 to 20 mm, in diameter, with 
elongated flexuous and radicant branches: ribs 7, sinuate-repand, with 
areolie 12 to 16 mm. apart: spines very small (scarcely 1 mm.) and 
rigid, the 3 upper brown, 3 lower gray, and the solitary central brown: 
flower and fruit unknown.—Type unknown. 
“ Northern Mexico.” 
Specimens examined: NORTHERN Mrxico (Lindheimer of 1873), 
60. Cereus gummosus Engelm. Zoe, ii, 20 (1891). 
Prostrate and assurgent, 3 to 12 dm. long, 7.5 to 10 em. in diameter, 
dull purplish-green: ribs (in young branch) 7 to 9, tuberculate, with 
sharp narrow intervals and prominent areole 18 to 20 mm. apart: 
spines stout and rigid, from a strongly bulbous base, black; radials 
about 12, the laterals longest (6 to 12 mm.), the lowest smallest; centrals 
3 to 6, stout, angled and compressed (sometimes quite flat), 18 to35 mm, | 
long, often with 2 very small additional ones above: tlowers 10 to 12.5 
em. long, purple: fruit subglobose, 6 to 8 cm. in diameter, spiny, bright- 
scarlet with purple pulp (“color of ripe watermelon ”), acid and pleas- 
ant: seeds obliquely obovate, compressed and keeled, rugose and pitted, 
2.5 mm. long.—Type, Parry specimens in Herb. Mo. Bot. Gard. 
Lower California, especially abundant in the “Cape Region.” 
Specimens examined: LOWER CALIFORNIA (Parry, with no date or 
station; Miss Fish of 1882, Sanzal; Brandegee of 1889, San Pablo and 
Magdalena Island, also of 1890, San José del Cabo). 
This species seems to have been noted first by Brandegee in his Plants of Baja 
California, 162 (1889), where it is said to be the “pitahaya” of southern Lower Cali- 
fornia. the fruit of which is held in high esteem, It is also said that the bruised 
stems are used for stupefying fish. Dr, Parry’s notes, with the original specimens 
(described by Enelemann in manuscript m 1882), state that “the internal cellular 
tissue is bright-yellow in dried-up trunks, changing to a dense resinous gum, which 
is ground up and mixed with oil for varnish; also used as pitch for calking boats.” 
This fact suggested the specilic name, : 
