ILLUSTRATED STUDIES IN THE GENUS OPUNTIA.—IV. 99 
tonio, Texas, either two or three under good cultivation and 
favorable season. In October, 1911, there were upon our 
plants in Texas the first crop of dry fruits, the second crop 
of green fruits with embryos well hardened, and a crop of 
blossoms. This species appears to be about as prolific in its 
fruit production in Texas as in California, which is not true 
of many species. Like many other species of Opuntia, this 
one secretes honey in the axils of its leaves, and in such 
dry climates as California, where there is no rain during the 
growing season, globules of honey which finally dry to a 
brittle, clear pellet of sugar attached to the upper portion of 
the areole, are conspicuous. Wasps are frequently attracted 
by this secretion, but the writer has never seen honey bees 
gathering it. 
The plants at San Antonio were set in 1908. At the close 
of the fourth season they are five to six feet high and have 
a spread of fully six feet. The species has been grown and 
studied under four collection numbers. The type specimen 
is one bearing my serial number 9174, prepared at San 
‘Antonio, Texas, May 2, 1910, from plants cultivated from 
cuttings collected under the same number in Webb County, 
Texas, March 13, 1908. Native plants have not been seen 
elsewhere, but the species is frequently cultivated. The de- 
scription is a compilation of several sets of notes taken from 
native and cultivated plants —Plate 6 and plate 7, two right- 
hand rows. 
Opuntia demissa, sp. nov. 
A low prostrate or half ascending species, with main branches on 
edge on ground and others ascending from them, or often no more than 
2 joints high; joints subcircular to obovate or oval, often 18 X 28 but 
often only 15 cm. in diameter, yellowish green with often a touch of 
bloom, tubercled and coppered when young, but soon becoming smooth 
and yellowish green; the young tubercles narrow abruptly, elevated 
below and articulated with a very large slightly flattened subulate 
leaf about 4 12 mm.; areoles subcircular to obovate, very variable 
in size, often 6 or 7 mm. in diam., but commonly 3 or 4X5 mm., 
tawny changing through dirty gray to black; spicules yellow, variable, 
5mm. long on one-year old joints, scattered butmore numerous above; 
spines white varying from bone-like to brownish at base, flattened, 
