294 Fruits and Fruit-Trees* 



so as to be almost saucer-like, and the delicately tinted 

 pinky-yellow surface spirally dotted at half-inch distances 

 with little scars. Internally it is of the substance of a 

 strawberry, but crowded with small black seeds. The 

 flavour is pleasantly sweet, the amount of saccharine 

 matter being considerable; there is also an agreeable 

 touch of acidity. " Fig " and " pear " are names so very 

 inappropriate, that it would be better to discard both, 

 and call the fruit by the name of the plant producing it. 



This is the Opuntia vulgaris, one of the very curious 

 order called the Cactaceae, everywhere represented in 

 conservatories, either by the brilliant crimson cereuses, or 

 by the rosy epiphyllums, indispensable for decoration in 

 early spring. Admirers of the quaint and grotesque are 

 glad also of mammillarias and "melon-thistles," over- 

 looking the terrific prickles for the sake of the charming 

 coronets of crimson bloom. Many of the species of this 

 order, American in every instance, produce eatable and 

 decidedly nutritious fruits of the same general character 

 as the opuntia, but they do not come to England. 



The plant before us, a native of Mexico, was one of 

 the first conveyed to Europe by the Spaniards of the time 

 of Columbus. They desired, we may be sure, to show 

 to their friends at home a vegetable production so totally 

 unlike anything they had ever beheld before. It very 

 soon got naturalized in the south of Europe, Africa, and 

 southern Asia. In Sicily it has spread over expanses of 

 volcanic sands and ashes, where there is not a particle 

 of ordinary soil, and in many warm countries is employed 



