4 8 



THE CACTACEAE. 



The great variation in the length of the spines and in the character of the spine sheaths 

 has led to the description of several varieties. These all seem to us to merge into the one 

 species, as above indicated. It sometimes hybridizes with 0. imbricata. See C. B. 

 Allaire's plant from San Antonio, New Mexico. 



The following names, Opuntia leptocaulis laetevirens Salm-Dyck (Hort. Dyck. 184. 

 1834), 0. gradlis subfatcns Salm-Dyck (Cact. Hort. Dyck. 1849. 73. 1850), and O. Icpto- 

 canlis major Tourney (Cycl. Amer. Hort. Bailey 3 : 1152. 1901) are printed but not described. 



Illustrations: Bull. Torr. Club 32 : pi. 10, f. 9; Rep. Mo. Bot. Card. 19 : pi. 21, in part; 

 Safford, Ann. Rep. Smiths. Inst. 1908: f. 12; Emory, Mil. Reconn. app. 2. f. 12; Pac. R. 

 Rep. 4 : pi. 20, f. i ; pi. 24, f. 13 to 15, all as Opuntia vaginata. Cact. Journ. i : 154, as Opunti.i 



FIG. 57 Opuntia leptocau- FIG. 58. Opuntia ca- 

 FIG. 56. Opuntia leptocaulis in the foreground. lis. Xo.a. ribaca. Xo.66. 



J'rutcsccns. Pac. R. Rep. 4: pi. 20, f . 4, 5 ; pi. 24, f. 19, all as Opuntia Jrutcscens brei'ispina. 

 Pac. R. Rep. 4: pi. 20, f. 2, 3; pi. 24, f. 16 to iS, all as Opuntia fruiescens longispina. 



Plate vi, figure 3, represents a fruiting branch from a plant collected by Dr. Rose near 

 Sierra Blanca, Texas, in 1913; figure 4 shows a fruiting branch from another Texas plant 

 obtained by the same collector. Figure 56 is from a photograph taken by Dr. MacDougal 

 near Tucson, Arizona, in 1913; figure 57 represents a branch with young leafy shoots, of a 

 specimen collected by Dr. Rose in 1913 at Laredo, Texas. 

 4. Opuntia tesajo Engelmann in Coulter, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 3: 448. 1896. 



Bushy, 3 dm. broad and high; joints slender, indistinctly tuberculate, 2 to 5 cm. long; areoles 

 5 to 6 mm. apart; leaves awl-shaped, 2 to 4 mm. long, often red; spines at first 2, small, dark brown, 

 4 to 8 mm. long, either erect or reflexed; later a long central spine develops, this porrect, 5 cm. long, 

 yellow near the tip; flowers yellow, small, 1.5 to 1.8 cm. long, including the ovary; style whitish; 

 stigma-lobes 5, yellowish. 



Type locality: In Lower California. 



Distribution: Central part of Lower California. 



The type of this little-known species should be in the herbarium of the Missouri 

 Botanical Garden, at St. Louis, but it can not now be found. The species has been in 

 cultivation at La Mortola, Italy, but it does not do well under cultivation. Dr. C. A. 

 Purpus, who has collected the plant in Lower California, regarded it as related to 0. 

 ramosissima, claiming that the stems have the peculiar marking of that species. This 



