C3S HORTUS JAMAICENSIS. TOrck 



side pale yellow ; when ripe of a reddish colour ; the skin is thin, containing a red. 

 sweel pulp, and a great many small, black, shining, crackling, seeds. This fruit is 

 eaten and thought or' a cooling nature ; Sloane says that wood-ants are extremely fond 

 fit, and that beaten and applied it is a good vulnerary. 



2. PEKUVIANUS. PERUVIAN. 



Cereus altissimus graciliorfructu eitus lafeo, infus niveo, seminibuz 

 nigris gleno. Sloane, v. 2, p. 158. Ci/lindraceus erectus ml cat us 

 major, summitate obtums ; aculeis canfertis. Browne, p. 23S, C. 8. 



Erect, long, with about ten bluntish angles. 



The stem a fathom or more in height, almost simple, two or three inches in- diame- 

 ter, blunt at the end, having ten deep angles, set with thorns, crowded eight or ten 

 together, about an inch in length, spreading, the inner ones shorter, tomentose at 

 the base. The angles at the top have the spines concealed among the wool, and they 

 come out gradually as the stem grows up ; the wool is white and brown. Flowers ses- 

 sile, in the very angles of the extremities, scattered,, ovate at the base, two inches, 

 long, elongated, red; berry unarmed ; blood-red within, eatable. Native of Jamaica, 

 in dry open situations. Swartz. The fruit is ripe in October. Sloane says he several 

 times wounded both sorts, but could never find any gum transude from them. Barham 

 calls them clildocs, which he says is the name of a plant which grows in all the southern 

 parts of America, and in Jamaica Some merry person gave it the name of dildoe ; but 

 in other places it is called flambeau, torch-wood, or prickle-candle, it being in the 

 shape of four candles joined together in angles, growing one out of another, like the 

 raque, and are from eight to fifteen feet long, s.et with sharp prickles all round from 

 top to bottom, green, and full of juice. Some bear a yellow fruit, others blood-red, 

 without-side, but of the same colour as the rest within ; which is a white sweet pulp, 

 full of small black seeds ; and they have all a large white flower, smelling very sweet, 

 which always comes out of that side of the plant next a south sun. Its lruit is as big 

 as large apples. 



When they grow old, and the green juice dries away, there is~ a yellow husk, or 

 shelly substance, appears full of holes like net-work, which is called torch-wood, for 

 it will burn like a candle and torch ; and I have known the Indians fill the hollowness 

 of these with a bituminous substance, making fine flambeaux. 



3. PORTULACIFOLIUS. PURSLANE LEAVED. 



Stem round, arboreous, thorny; leaves wedge-form, retuse* 



Stem leafless, but armed with bundles of bristle-shaped spines; leaves, on the 

 'branches wedge-shaped, emarginate, thick, succulent, sometimes alternate, some- 

 times two, three, or four, together, having a ver-ticiilated appearance, with subsoli- 

 tary subulate spines, two, three, or four, together, frequently only one at their base. 

 Flowers at the ends of the twigs, solitary, sometimes two together; petals rosaceous, 

 ilat, cor late ; fruit roundish, somewhat angular, having no. tufts of leaves on it, which 

 distinguishes it from the pereskia, which it otherwise -much resembles There is a 

 very beautiful tree of this species at the residence of the honourable mr. Hinchliflfe, 

 near Spanish-Town, not far from his house, which has two stems, each nearly a foot 

 ill diameter, and about eight feet high to the branches, which are thick, numerous, 

 and armed with tufts of spines, spreading from twelve to fifteen feet on all sides : to 



the 



