82 TL'INIDAD AND TOBAGO BULLETIN. [XIX. .?. 



2. Nopalea COchenillifera (L.) Salm-Dyck. [Cactus cochenilU/'er L. ; 



Opnntia cocheniUifera Miller.] 



The Cochineal Cactus is a plant sometimes twelve feet high, usually 

 lower, often much branched, light or dull green, with flat, rather thin, 

 oblong, spineless joints from six inches to over a foot long, often 

 mistaken for leaves, but its real leaves are very small, awl-shaped, and 

 fall away promptly after their appearance on the young joints ; the 

 joints bear small circular nreoles containing minute barbed bristles^ 

 (glochids) -which also fall away, so that one can handle the older joints 

 with impunity. The trunks of large plants are often six or eight inches 

 thick at the base and sometimes bear short spines. The scarlet flowers 

 are borne one at an areole on the edges or sides of the joints ; the 

 ovai-y is covered with low tubercles, bearing many glochids ; the sepals 

 and petals are erect, the inner petals embracing the stamens which 

 protrude beyond them, and the very slender style projects beyond the 

 stamens ; the stigma has several narrow lobes ; the red fruit is one to- 

 two inches long. 



It is widely planted in Trinidad about houses and grows readily froin 

 detached joints. It is locally known as " Piachette. " I observed a 

 large colony near the ruins of a home on top of a bluff at Belleview 

 which had spread into a thicket and is evidently increasing in size. 

 The plant is widely distributed in tropical America, but its original 

 home is unknown. Linnaeus in 1753 attributed it to Jamaica, but it 

 is not native in Jamaica now'. Its joints are mucilaginous and used for 

 ixjultices. According to Mr. W. E. Broadway the flattened stems are sliced 

 into pieces and then applied as poultices in cases of inflammation, scalds, 

 burns, &c. Much relief from pain is asserted to follow shortly after 

 their application. A tea is also pre2">ared from the same cactus for use 

 in certain ailments. 



3. Opuntia Boldinghii Brit ton and Ro.'^e. 



Boldingli's Prickly Pear is a flat-jointed, nearl_y imarmed cactus, 

 usually bxishy-branchcd, becoming about six feet high with a short 

 trunk-like base. The joints are dull green, six to eight inches long, 

 obovate to elliptic, spineless or when young with a few sliort brown 

 spines at the areoles and numerous short barbed bristles (glochids);, 

 joints of seedling plants bear some acicular opines. The leaves ai-e 

 aninute and fugacious. The rose-coloured or salmon-pink flowers are 

 borne singly at areoles mostly on the edges of the joints and are about 

 an inch and a half broad when expanded, with blunt ascending or 

 spreading petals ; the plant is quite showy when in full bloom ; the 

 stamens are shoner than the petals, the style nearly ^\■hite, the lobes 

 of the stigma yellowish. ■■ The fiuit is spineless and about an inch and 

 a half long. 



It inhabits banks and hillsides on Chacachacare and Patos Islands, 

 -where T observed it in March, 1920. It is the plant recorded by Mr. Hart, 

 in his Herbarium List as OxuLntia Tuna, collected by Finlaj' on 

 Chacachacare April 20, 1866, but the real OimnUa Tuna is a quite 

 different, very spiny, yello%v-flowcred species, known to me only from 

 Jamaica, much confused b}' authors with the widely distributed roastal 



