1<J:U.] the cacti OF TlilXIDAD. 83 



West Indian Opuntia Dillenii which ranp^cs south to Grenada. Mr, 

 Broadway informs me that he collected 0. Boldinghii on Patos, June 8, 

 1908. Previous to my studies on the*Bocas Islands I knew the plant 

 only from Curasao and the northern coast of Venezuela. 



Opuntia Ficus-Tndica (L.) Miller, Tall Prickly Pear, sometimes 

 fifteen feet high, with flat oblong or elliptic joints up to a foot and a 

 half long, usually spineless, its yellow flowers three to four inches 

 wide, its red or yellow edible fruit two to nearly four inches long, 

 is widely planted near houses in Trinidad as in nearly all warm regions ; 

 its native home is unknown. 



4. Opuntia caribaea Britton and Rose. 



The Caribbean Prickly Pear is very different in habit and in aspect 

 from the foregoing species. Its branches are round, slender, about 

 hcxif an inch in diameter and two to four inches long, the areoles bearing 

 from one to thr-ee needle-like spines, about an inch long, with thin, 

 paper-like sheaths. The fruit is red, about three-fourths of an inch in 

 diameter. 



All we know about the occurrence of this species on Trinidad is 

 from a coloured drawing preserved in the herbarium of the Royal 

 Gardens at Kew, sent from Trinidad by David Lockhart in 1825, which 

 apparently represents this species, known otherwise from Margarita and 

 the Venezuelan coast and in Haiti and Santo Domingo. I searched 

 the Bocas Islands intensively for this interesting plant but failed to find 

 it ; perhaps it is tucked away in some dry valley or on some bank wliich 

 I did not reach ; possibly Lockhart's painting was made from a plant 

 he received from elsewhere, but this seems unlikely. 



6. Cereus hexag'onus L- [Cerem kpidotus Salm-Dyck ; Cereus 



Northumherlandinvs Lamb. ] 



The Six-angled Cereus is the tallest cactus of Trinidad, often thirty 

 feet high in its native haunts, becoming nearly twice that height when 

 planted and fully developed without injury. There is now at least one 

 immense one in Port-of-fcjpain and others may be seen in St. Joseph, 

 Its stem and branches are columnar, leafless, the trunk sometimes over 

 a foot in diameter near the ground, the upright or ascending branches 

 composed of many green or bluish-gi-een joints three or four inches 

 tiiick, the upper ones mostly four-ribbed or four-angled, the lower 

 six-ribbed or rarely seven-ribbed ; transitions from four to six ribs may 

 often be observed; the areoles of young joints are commonly nierely 

 felted, without spines, but those of old joints usually bear several 

 (sometimes as many as ten) aciculai', unequal brownish spines up to 

 about two inches long ; the flowers, borne one at an areole high up on 

 the branches, are eight or ten inches long and often numerous ; the 

 ovary is nearly smooth, the perianth funnel-form, with lanceolate white 

 inner segments and pur[)lish outer ones, the tube slender. The fruit is 

 ovoid, from two inches to five inches long, pale red with white or purplish 

 edible pulp and many small black seeds. 



It is frequent on the Bocas Islands and often conspicuous by its 

 large size ; on the Trinidad mainland I observed it near Chaguaramag 



