Plantee Lindheimeriana. 445 



toothed, calyx-segments longer than the tube. Petals deep 

 red in the dried specimens. 



241. G. parviflora, Dougl. Sandy prairies, &c. July 

 — August. Ovaries and fruit clothed with a close, soft 

 pubescence. 



242. Stenosiphon virgatus, Spach. High prairies on the 

 Colorado, and on rocky soil. 



243. JussiffiA occidentalis, Nutt. Along rivulets. July. 

 Petals obcordate. 



244. Opuntia fragilis, Nutt., var. frutescens. (O. fru- 

 tescens, En gel. MSS.) Near the Musket-thickets, (vide No. 

 233,) on the Colorado ; often acquiring the height of four or 

 five feet, with a branching ligneous stem, covered with light 

 gray bark, and sometimes with lichens. It bears bunches of 

 small capillary spines, with one larger one (4-5 lines long ;) 

 these disappear from the older stems. The wood is hard and 

 close-grained. The younger branches are green and terete, 

 (or angular when withered,) and bear the ultimate articula- 

 tions, which are about an inch long, and very easily break off. 

 These bear when young, like other Opuntise, short terete 

 subulate leaves, with a single spine in their axils, and above 

 this a bunch of small ones. The specimens are not in flower, 

 but are covered with the obovate umbilicate scarlet fruits, 

 which are about eight lines long, fleshy, but not juicy, and 

 contain^very few (2-5) white, compressed seeds. What is 

 most remarkable, these fruits are often proliferous, and bear 

 from one to four or five new branches from the upper 

 bunches of spines. The fruit either, falls off with these 

 branches, or else dries up, persists and finally forms part of 

 the stem. 1 



1 Though unable to institute a proper comparison, I have little doubt that this is 

 O. fragilis of Nuttall, attaining a fuller growth in that warm region than on the 

 Missouri. The following species, collected in the same localities by Lindheimer, 

 though not in sufficient quantity for distribution, have been studied in a living and 

 (most of them) in a flowering state, by Dr. Engelmann, whose account of them is 

 here appended. Unfortunately, neither Dr. Engelmann nor myself have access to 



