NAT. ORDER. CACTE^. 



181 



tube ; petals imbricated, sub-patent; the outer ones short, thick, and 

 fleshy, the inner from iialf an inch to an inch long; style, longer than 

 the stamens, pale-yellow, thickish, swollen downwards, solid, or with 

 only a thread-like, central hollow towards the top ; stigma of gener- 

 ally five, sometimes four, pale-yellow, finally ferruginous bordered, 

 erect, subconnivant, ovate lobes ; filaments and anthers pale ; germen 

 half or three quarters of an inch long, cup-shaped at top, uneven, 

 bearing a minute, fleshy, ovate-globose, yellowish, deciduous leaf at 

 the summit of each irregular tubercle, inside of which is a fascicle of 

 short, minute, chestnut bristles; a vertical section discovers the cen- 

 tral, subtriangular, cell-like ovarium, containing from one to five 

 ovules ; frait subglobose, approaching to oval more or less, with the 

 cup-shaped hollow at the top obsolete, so as to be often truncate, 

 from an inch to an inch and-a-half in diameter, the color of a Mag- 

 num-bonum Plum ; perfectly even, but furnished with short, dense 

 fascicles, tufts, or branches, of rich chestnut-colored bristles, contras- 

 ting beautifully with the delicate transparent yellow of the thin, 

 smooth skin; a few of these are twice as long as the rest; all are 

 extremely deciduous, brittle, and acute, so as to render the exami- 

 nation of the fruit more than ordinarily troublesome. It is hardly 

 possible to touch the plant when in fructification without getting 

 the skin or closes full of these bristles ;. inside of the fruit pale yel- 

 lowish-white, containing in the middle from one to four, much flat- 

 tened, rather large round seeds, three or four lines in diameter, en- 

 veloped in a singular, dense, cottony mass of fibres ; the fruit is rather 

 agreeable, juicy, with a fine acid, somewhat resembling an indiffer- 

 ent, hard-fleshed, or unripe Plum, with a smell and slight flavor 

 like the leaf-stalks of garden Rhubarb. Its principal flowering sea- 

 son is May and June. 



