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Cereus flagelliformis to Arabia, and that they have not there 

 passed into a wild state. That Opuntia occur in India must 

 be regarded as a well-established fact, but few well-founded 

 notices exist respecting the distribution of Opuntiae in Africa 

 and southern Europe. Desfontaines mentions the yellow- 

 flowered Opuntia for Barbary ; in Greece it is very frequent. 

 In Tyrol the Opuntiae occur up to 47 lat. ; in northern Italy 

 only O. Italica, Tenore, and 0. vulgaris, Miiller, are found, 

 but in southern Italy several species. In Spain the Opuntice 

 are so common that the question almost arises whether some 

 species have not been transported from Spain to America or 

 from America to Spain. The Opuntia Tuna de Castilla is espe- 

 cially cultivated in America on account of its beautiful fruit. 



M. Zuccarini also describes very fully the uses of the va- 

 rious Cacteae. The Opuntice and the tall thorny Cerei are em- 

 ployed for fences and for fortifying entrenchments ; the wood 

 of the Cactece affords a most excellent material for burning, 

 which is used in various ways in lands poor of wood, in the 

 neighbourhood of Copiapo even for the smelting of copper. I 

 have frequently employed the dry wood of the Cerei and 

 Opuntiae for burning, and found it preferable only from its be- 

 ing consumed very quickly in a dry state ; the copper smelting 

 in the province of Copiapo, the northern part of Chili, with 

 Cactus wood has been discontinued, nay, one may frequently 

 journey there for days together without seeing a single Cactus. 

 Probably these plants were so unsparingly exterminated at the 

 time when the working of the copper ore was begun there with 

 the greatest enthusiasm about 100 years ago. On the high Mex- 

 ican plains, the copses, miles in length, of Cerei, Opuntice., and 

 Echinocacti afford in the dry season a means to the herds of 

 horned cattle of quenching their thirst. In Mexico the deli- 

 cate shoots of Opuntia Nopalitio are eaten like cabbage, and 

 the flesh ofEchinocactus cornigerus boiled in sugar like melons. 

 The fruits of the Opuntice are, as is well known, eaten every- 

 where, and in some places with great gusto. The species most 

 sought after in Mexico are the Alfajayuca and the Tuna de 

 Castilla : the first bears fruit of the size of a thick fist, it is 

 of a green or yellowish colour, almost without thorns, and 

 contains a sweet soft flesh. The fruits of the Cerei are also 

 eaten in many districts (the fruits of Cereus chilensis have a 



