328 Transactions. — Botany. 



lu this country, as in England, we scarcely know the 

 Indian fig except as succulent ugly sprawling shrubs without 

 leaves ; but some species have leaves of an ordinary description, 

 and when old the columnar species form wood of considerable 

 strength. Humboldt speaks of a forest of such plants, not 

 mere herbaceous species, but tall trees, with stems yielding 

 wood suitable for domestic purposes. And Darwin states 

 that in Central Chili " the cactuses, or, rather, Opuntias, 

 were very numerous. I measured one," he says, " of a spherical 

 figure, which, including the spines, was 6ft. 4in. in circum- 

 ference. The height of the common branching kind is from 

 12ft. to 15ft., and the girth with spines of the branches between 

 3ft. and 4ft." ("Naturalist's Voyage"). Further on in his 

 admirable book he says, " A species of large tree Cactus was 

 one of the principal kinds of food of the great land-tortoise in 

 the Gallapagos." His account of both — the huge reptile, and 

 the plant, its food — is exceedingly interesting. 



There is no reason for supposing that the modern Opiintia 

 is described by Theophrastus, as the German botanist Sprengel 

 asserted. The account given by the former writer, as far as we 

 know, rather suits some tree like Ficus rellgiosa. Hot dry 

 exposed places are the favourite homes of the Indian figs, 

 for which they are naturally adapted in consequence of the 

 imperfect evaporating pores of their skin, a circumstance 

 which, as De Candolle has shown, accounts for the excessively 

 succulent state of their tissue. 



In some recent valuable publications by the Department of 

 x\griculture of the United States Government, "On the 

 Grasses and the Forage-plants for Cultivation in the South," 

 I find several practical statements both important and curious 

 respecting this plant and its allied species and their uses 

 for forage, in letters and communications from extensive 

 and practical cattle-breeders in several of the Southern 

 States — viz., Texas, Mobile, New Mexico, and California — and, 

 as they are also very extraordinary, I shall quote a few of 

 them verbatim. These, however, are prefaced by some 

 humane and able remarks from the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, U.S., which I also extract: — 



" A number of species of Cactus, mainly of the genus 

 Opuntia, and commonly called nopal, or prickly pear, are 

 used as food for cattle and sheep in the dry regions of Texas, 

 and westward, where the ordinary forage-plants fail. In the 

 natural state cattle do not often touch it, unless driven by 

 hunger, except while the new growth is young and tender. 

 Sheep eat it without preparation more readily than cattle, 

 and for them the plants are sometimes merely cut down so as 

 to be within reach. More often the herder passes along and 

 clips off a portion of each flat joint, so tliat the sheep can 



