Three new species of Opuntia, with a discussion of the identity of 
Opuntia Lindheimeri 
BERNARD MACKENSEN 
For some years the writer has been studying the opuntias 
growing in the country about San Antonio, Texas. Among the 
large, more or less erect forms he has recognized several species 
described by Dr. David Griffiths in recent years, but of the re- 
maining large forms he has not been able to discover a record 
anywhere. Among the latter he naturally expected to recognize 
Opuntia Lindheimeri, but careful examination revealed the fact 
that no single form agrees with Dr. Engelmann’s description of 
that species and with the specimens and notes ascribed to it in 
the herbarium of the Missouri Botanical Garden; nor has he been 
able to find such a form at New Braunfels, the type locality of 
that species. 
Of the presumably new species mentioned, three are described 
below. A certain other species occurs here, characterized by 
robustness, its height sometimes exceeding two meters, and by 
its white to yellow spines (resembling bone), etc. Perhaps this 
species approaches the description of O. Lindheimeri more nearly 
than any other occurring in this region. The two, however, 
differ in length of bristles, length and color of spines, shape and 
character of fruit, and size and character of seed. The fruit 
Preserved in the type material of O. Lindheimeri, and the sketch of 
it accompanying them, show that organ to be very slender. None 
of the larger opuntias of the type locality have such a fruit, so 
far as the writer has been able to determine, but the low species 
Opuntia macrorhiza and O. leptocarpa bear fruit of that form. 
Some of the type material was taken from plants grown in St. 
— and for that reason is probably not normal, as the opuntias 
very readily modified by changed conditions. This fact, 
nig aa with the unsatisfactory condition of a part of the material, 
“ases the difficulty of establishing the identity of Opuntia 
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