proceedings: botanical society 421 



apple trees in orchards at Wenatchee, Washington, where it has occa- 

 sioned alarm. This species occurs over the region from Minnesota to 

 the State of Washington, south to New Mexico, but not in California. 

 No data concerning its natural host plants are available in the litera- 

 ture, but herbarium labels record Ouercus and Cercocarpus positively, 

 and with some doubt Pinus and Populus. Doubtless the hosts are 

 numerous. The eastern analogue, C. umbellata, has never been re- 

 corded as attacking cultivated plants. It is of interest that the nuts 

 of C. pallida are edible. Palmer, in 1878, states that the Pah-ute 

 Indians eat the fruits, and Piper, in 1901, records that they are eaten 

 in Washington by children as well as by swine. 



Dr. David Griffiths reviewed the first volume of The Cactaceae 

 by N. L. Britton and J. N. Rose (Carnegie Institution, Publication 

 No. 248). He referred to the treatment of Opuntia lindheimeri as char- 

 acteristic: "Certain forms have been described which in cultivation 

 we have been able to recognize as possibly distinct; but in the field 

 they seem to intergrade with other forms. In fact, all the plants de- 

 scribed as species which are cited above in the synonomy grow within 

 a relatively small distributional area." This small distributional 

 area extends from the Coast to the highlands of the Lower Pecos, and 

 from the alluvial saline delta of the Rio Grande to the cretaceous of 

 the Edwards Plateau, and a similar distance in the other direction to 

 Tampico. The species, according to the monograph, extends over 

 close to 75,000 square miles of territory. It was the conclusion of the 

 late lamented Professor Bernard Mackensen, that each change of 

 soil produced a different cactus flora in southern Texas. But Professor 

 Mackensen, after making his field studies, grew the plants in his garden, 

 a practice which the authors appear to think is likely to lead the sys- 

 tematist into error. The type locality of 0. Undheimen is the detritus 

 at the base of the Edwards Plateau. Two colored illustrations are 

 given. They are both from the delta of the Rio Grande, 260 miles 

 distant. 



0. leptocarpa, of Mackensen, is considered by the authors to be a 

 hybrid between 0. lindheimeri and 0. macronhiza — a hybrid which 

 the reviewer had not been able to produce artificially. The reasons 

 given for the supposed hybridity are two in number, (i) The three 

 species are often found growing together and (2) the supposed hybrid 

 is intermediate in stature between the other two. The so-called hybrid 

 reproduces true from seed. The parent plants of the synonomy of 

 0. lindheimeri are reproduced with remarkable fidelity from seed. 

 Cross-pollinations on 0. lindheimeri have produced nothing but 

 maternal inheritance thus far. 



Dr. Griffiths also exhibited a few colored illustrations of the species 

 included in 0. lindheimeri. The eleven plates that were displayed 

 constitute about one-third of the illustrated evidence available on this 

 remarkable species. Two colored plates illustrating 0. hasillaris 

 also were shown. The authors have decided that one of these is an 

 anomalous form of the other. 



