P. aculeata is a very variable plant in habit, foliage, the 
number of petals, and their colour. It forms a straggling 
or climbing bush or small tree, the branches of which have 
been described as twining, though more generally it climbs 
by means of the spines, which are hooked on young branches, 
but long and straight in old; the spines are seated on 
small cushions, which in the older parts are densely 
tomentose. The bark of the trunk and even young 
branches is pale and corky. The leaves vary from obovate 
or almost orbicular to elliptic-lanceolate. The flowers, which 
are one and a half inches in diameter, have the petals pure 
white, rosy, or yellowish white with a rosy blush (as in 
those here figured). The fruit is the size of a small goose- 
berry, globose, yellowish, transparent, few-seeded, and 
covered with small spreading leaves, which are the free 
tips of the sepals. The leaves are used as a pot herb in 
Brazil, and the berries are eaten throughout the tropics of 
America. Iam not aware that the plant is cultivated for 
its fruit, it being rather, like our bramble, an inhabitant of 
waste places. Grisebach’s P. Sacharosa (the native name 
in the Argentine provinces) is identical with P. aculeata. 
The var. longispina, &e. (P. longispina, Haw.) has no cha- 
racter of specific or even varictal value, the short solitary 
recurved and very long clustered spines being found in the 
same plant. 
The name Pereskia was given by Plukenet in honour of 
Nicol. Fabric. Peiresc, member of Parliament for Aix, in 
Provence, a very learned man and devoted to botany. It 
was changed to Peirescia by Zuccarini, a wanton change 
that has not been generally adopted. 
It is singular that so common an American plant with 
an eatable fruit should not have been introduced by the 
pamards, and become an “escape” in the Old World, 
tas I age it would be naturalized with great rapidity. 
_ 
Fig. 1, A cushion from the older br. i i ) 
a ; anches with long spines, of the natura 
size; 2, vertical section of flower ; 3 and 4, stamens All oaldened. 
