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CACTACEJE. (CACTUS FAMILY.) 
pie entire leaves in whorls, and minute flowers sessile in the 
axils, perfect or polygamous. (Name from Imros , a horse , and 
ovpa , a tail.) 
1. H. viilgariSj L. Leaves in whorls of 8 or 12, linear, 
acute. —Ponds and springs, New York, &c., northward, rare. —Plant 
1° high, fleshy. 
Order 42. CACTACEiE. (Cactus Family.) 
Fleshy and thickened leafless plants of peculiar aspect, 
globular or columnar and many-angled, or flattened and 
jointed, usually with prickles. Flowers solitary, sessile ; 
the sepals and petals numerous, imbricated in several rows, 
adherent to the 1-celled ovary. — Stamens numerous, with 
long and slender filaments, inserted on the inside of the 
tube or cup formed by the union of the sepals and petals. 
Style 1: stigmas numerous. Fruit a 1-celled berry, with 
numerous seeds on several parietal placentae. Albumen 
none. 
1. OPtntfTIA, Tourn. Prickly Pear. 
Sepals and petals not prolonged into a tube, spreading, the 
inner roundish. Berry often prickly. — Stem composed of flat 
and usually broad joints, bearing clusters of bristles often with 
spines intermixed, arranged in a spiral order. (A name of The¬ 
ophrastus, originally applied to some very different plant.) 
1. O* vulgaris, Mill. Stems low, prostrate-spreading, of ob- 
ovate joints, armed with short barbed bristles, rarely with a few 
spines; flowers sulphur-yellow; fruit nearly smooth, eatable.— 
Sandy fields and dry rocks, Nantucket to New Jersey and southward, 
usually near the coast. June. 
Order 43. GROSSUGACE.E. (Currant Family.) 
Low shrubs, sometimes prickly, with alternate palmately 
lobed leaves, a 5-lobed calyx cohering with the \-celled 
ovary, and bearing 5 small petals and 5 stamens. Fruit 
a \-celled berry, with 2-parietal placenta, crowned with the 
shrivelled remains of the calyx. Seeds anatropous, with a 
minute embryo at the base of hard albumen. 
