i6 



THE CACTACEAE. 



Type locality: Tunari Mountains,* Bolivia, at 1,400 meters altitude. 



Distribution: Bolivia, known only from the type locality. 



This species is said to flower in May. 



The description has been drawn from a cotype in the herbarium of the New York 

 Botanical Garden, and from Professor Schumann's original account of the species in his 

 Gesamtbeschreibung der Kakteen, p. 762. Dr. Kuntze obtained the specimens during his 

 botanical exploration of Bolivia in 1892. The species was named, but not described, by 

 Professor Schumann in Dr. Kuntze's Revisio Genera Plantarum (3-: 107. 1893). 



The material preserved is too imperfect to enable us to give an illustration of this 

 plant. 



FIG. 10. Pereskiu guamacho. Xo.8. 



9. Pereskia guamacho Weber, Diet. Hort. Bois 938. 1898. 



Plant very spiny, usually a small shrub i to 3 meters high, but often a tree 10 meters high 

 with a trunk up to 4 dm. in diameter and 3 meters long or more below the much branched top; 

 areoles rather prominent, especially in age often standing out like small knobs on the branches, filled 

 with brown felt, at first usually with only i to 4 spines along with a few short accessory ones, but in 

 age often with 20 spines or more; spines somewhat divaricate, rigid, brown, the longer ones often 

 4 cm. long; leaves on young branches solitary, but on old wood growing in fascicles, acute, lanceolate 

 to ovate or obovate with cuneate bases, usually about 3 cm. long, but sometimes 5 to 9 cm. long by 

 3 to 6 cm. broad, fleshy; flowers probably solitary, but so thickly set along the branches as to appear 

 almost spicate, sessile, bright yellow, 4 cm. broad; ovary covered with small, lanceolate-acuminate 

 leaves, these hairy in the axils; stamens numerous; fruit globular, about 2 cm. in diameter, becoming 

 naked, said to be orange-colored and edible; seeds black, flattened, 4 mm. broad. 



Type locality: Basin of the Orinoco, Venezuela. 



Distribution: Venezuela mainland and on Margarita Island. 



This plant is very common not only in the flat land along the coast of Venezuela but 

 also in the mountains. It is also widely grown in and about yards, for the leaves are 

 supposed to have medicinal properties, and when properly grown as a hedge it forms a 



Tunari Mountains, just northwest of Cochabiimlxi. Bolivia, about at the site of Sacaba. 



