10 UNITED STATES AND MEXICAN BOUNDARY 
tubercles soon become prolif , and the branches increase and reproduce often in such a manner 
as to form large and dense hemispherical masses. Tubercles 6-8 lines long; spines 33-44 
lines long; flowers 14-2 inches in length, and fully as widely open in bright sunshine ; tube 
slender, funnel-shaped, remarkably constricted above the oval ovary. Fruit not seen. 
Subgen. 2. CoRYPHANTHA. 
Plante simplices seu caespitose, tuberculate, aculeigere. 
Tubercula plus minus teretia, florifera facie superiore longitudinaliter sulcata, in stirpibus 
junioribus nondum floribundis sulco breviori notata, vel penitus esulcata. 
Areols florifere: axillares seu in tuberculo ipso supra-axillares, cum areolis aculeiferis sulco 
villoso plus minus profundo demum nudato subinde glandulifero juncte, tomentose. 
Flores ex areolis tuberculorum hornotinorum adultorum (inde laxi) seu vix evolutorum (inde 
congesti) oriundi, plerumque magni, speciosi. 
varium emersum: bacca plerumque anno primo, rarissime anno secundo, maturescens, ovata 
seu subglobosa, viridis seu raro coccinea, szepissime floris rudimentis coronata. 
Semina plerumque majuscula, fulva, fusca seu nigra, leevia seu scrobiculata, nunquam tuber- 
culata. 
This subgenus, characterized mainly by the vertical position of the flowers, principally com- 
prises species from the northern border of the Cactus region, most of them, until lately, un- 
known, or imperfectly known, to botanists. All the Mamillarie of the Upper Missouri, and 
most of those from Texas and New Mexico, with which I had become acquainted, have grooved 
tubercles and showy vertical flowers, which fact I indicated as early as 1845, in the Plante 
Lindheimeriane, and again in 1848, in Wislizenus’ Report. Dr. Poselger, who, in his travels 
in Texas and Mexico, had the best opportunity of studying these plants, further verified this 
fact, and first noted that all the top-flowering Mamillarie had grooved tubercles, at least in the 
fully developed parts of the plant; and he justly inferred that all Mamillarie with grooved 
tubercles (the section Aulacothece) belong here. But he went further, and removed them from 
Mamillaria to Echinocactus, solely on account of the vertical flowers. Now some Mamillaric of 
this section (e. g. M. robustispina) do approach Echinocactus in the shape of their embryo, as do 
others (e. g. Mf. macromeris) by having an occasional sepaloid scale on the ovary; while some 
Echinocacti (e. g. E. setispinus, E. horizonthalonius) have a straight embryo with very short 
connate cotyledons, and others have few and somewhat fugacious sepaloid scales on the ovary, 
(e. g. E. intertextus, E. setispinus.) Still I think that a safe line of distinction can be drawn 
between them, and that Coryphantha, though forming a transition to Echinocactus, much rather 
belongs to Mamilloria, But it must be admitted that the characters distinguishing most 
genera of Cactaces are almost as difficult to define as those of the species. 
11. M. Nortanii, 8 cmspitosa (M. similis, Z. in Plant. Lindh. 1845) has been collected by 
Mr. Wright and others in the same part of Texas where Mr. Lindheimer had originally found 
it, viz: from the Brazos to Austin and San Antonio; it has since also been brought from the 
Kansas river, but does not seem to extend into the mountains of Western Texas. .(Tab. LXXIV, 
fig. 6-17.) 
lane M. ScHEERIT, Muhlenpf. 8? vattpa: magna, robusta, oyato-globosa, simplex seu ad basin 
parce prolifera, glaucescens ; tuberculis magnis remotis patulis e basi lata subcylindricis, 
supra sulco profundo glandula singula paucisve munito (juniore lanato) subbilobis ; axillis latis, 
