Addisonia 53 



(Plate 147) 



• 



ECHINOPSIS LEUCANTHA 

 White Torch-thistle 



Native of Argentina 



Family Cactaceae Cactus Family 



Echinocactus leucanthus Gillies; Salm-Dyck, Hort. Dyck. 341. 1834. 

 Cereus leucanthus Pfeiff. Enum. Cact. 71. 1837. 

 Echinopsis leucantha Walp. Repert. Bot. 2: 324. 1843. 



Plants solitary, globular to oblong, often more than a foot high, 

 usually overtopped by the long connivent spines; the ribs are 

 twelve to fourteen, with the spines eight to ten in each cluster, 

 brownish, the central one usually longer and more or less curved. 

 The flowers are very large for the size of the plant, six inches long 

 or more, with a long slender tube, bearing small scales with tufts of 

 hairs in their axils. The spreading petals are oblong, obtuse, 

 about one inch long, the outer ones pinkish, the inner ones nearly 

 white. 



This cactus has a rather wide distribution in western and cen- 

 tral Argentina and shows a great variation in form; several types 

 have been described as distinct. 



In the living collections of the New York Botanical Garden are 

 several plants of this genus collected by the writer in Argentina in 

 1915, a number of which have flowered. The plants do well in 

 cultivation and flower freely each spring. The one here illustrated 

 flowered in April 1918; it was obtained in the Andes, west of Men- 

 doza near Portrerillos in 1915. 



The plant has several English names, the one here adopted having 

 been used by Lindley. 



The genus Echinopsis as we now understand it is characterized 

 by one-jointed stems, which are globular or more or less elongate, 

 by slender funnelform flower-tubes, by short perianth-segments 

 and by hairs in the areoles on the ovary and flower-tube. The 

 flowers are similar to those of Trichocereus but the habit is very 

 unlike the typical species of that genus. 



We now recognize about twenty-five species, all native of South 

 America, east of the Andes. 



J. N. Rose. 



