C A C 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



CMS 



221 



plant it feeds upon. The prickly pear, so abundant in Ja- 

 maica, is covered with the insects, but not having their 

 proper food, they are in general diminutive, and have very 

 little red tincture in their bodies. These plants bear a suc- 

 culent fruit at their extremities, filled with a delicate red- 

 coloured juice. This is the natural food of the insect ; the 

 exuviae and animal salts of the insect are, from the minute- 

 ness of its parts, inseparable from the essential principles 

 of the dye, and must diminish the brilliancy of the colour : 

 and this has put some persons upon inspissating the juice of 

 the fruit itself. The fruit, when ripe, is said to check fluxes 

 by its mild restringency ; it is also a powerful diuretic, and 

 sometimes imparts a tinge to the urine. See the seventeenth 

 species. 



22. Cactus Curassavicus ; Curassao, or Least Indian Fig, 

 or Pinpillow. Proliferous-jointed ; joints cylindric, ventri- 

 cose, compressed. This has thicker and more swelling 

 joints than the other sorts, closely armed with slender white 

 spines. The branches spread out on every side, and where 

 they have no support fall to the ground, very often sepa- 

 rating at the joints, and, as they lie upon the ground, putting 

 out roots, and forming new plants. It very rarely- produces 

 flowers in England. In the West Indies it is called Pinpil- 

 low, from the appearance which the branches have to a pin- 

 cushion stuck full of pins. It is said to grow naturally at 

 Curassao. See the seventeenth specipq. 



23. Cactus Phyllanthus; Spleenwort- leaved Indian fig. 

 Proliferous, ensiform-compressed, serrate, repand. It has 

 very thin branches, which are indented regularly on their 

 edges like Spleenwort ; they are of a light green, shaped like 

 a broadsword, and without spines : the flowers come out 

 from the side and at the end of the branches, and are of a pale 

 yellow colour ; the fruit rarely ripens in England. Native of 

 Brazil. See the seventeenth species. 



24. Cactus Alatus. Proliferous, ensiform, compressed, 

 serrate, repand. The stem round, ash-coloured, flexile, 

 whence issue several leaves, at first hairy, growing to a foot 

 in length, an inch broad in the middle ; and having round 

 indentures on their edges, out of which proceed the flowers. 

 The fruit small and compressed. Native of Jamaica. 



25. Cactus Spinosissimus ; Cluster-spined Indian Fig. 

 Stem upright, compressed ; branches opposite, bifarious, com- 

 pressed ; spines bristle-shaped. The branches of this species 

 have the joints much longer, narrower, and more compressed, 

 than in any of the others ; the spines are very long, slender, 

 and of a yellowish-brown colour, coming out in clusters all 

 over the surface of the branches, crossing each other, so as 

 to render the plant dangerous to handle ; for upon being 

 touched, the spines quit the branches, adhere to the hand, 

 and penetrate the skin, so as to be very troublesome : its 

 growth is more upright and lofty than the other Opuntias ; 

 the trunk below the branches is so absolutely covered with 

 spines as to be invisible, and to seem nothing but a congeries 

 of these. Hence the gardeners whimsically call this plant 

 Robinson Crusoe's Coat. Upon the whole, this species is 

 very different from the rest, and has more of an air of neat- 

 ness and elegance than any of these strange plants, notwith- 

 standing its roughness. Native of Jamaica. 



26. Cactus Pereskia; Barbadoes Gooseberry. Stem arbore- 

 ous, round; prickles double, recurved ; leaves lanceolate,ovate. 

 This has many slender branches, which trail on whatever 

 plant grows near them ; these, as also the stem, are beset 

 with long whitish spines, or tufts ; the leaves are roundish, 

 very thick and succulent ; and the fruit is about the size of 

 a walnut, having tufts of Small leaves on it, and within a 

 whitish mucilaginous pulp. It grows in some parts of the 



VOL. i. 19. 



Spanish West Indies, whence it was brought to the English 

 settlements in America, where it is called Barbadoes goose- 

 berry. The Dutch have named it blad-apple. It may be 

 propagated by cuttings planted during any of the 

 summer months, in pots filled with fresh light earth, and 

 plunged into a moderate hot-bed of tanner's bark, observing 

 to shade them from the sun in the heat of the day, and to 

 refresh them every third or fourth day with water ; in about 

 two months the cuttings will have made good roots, when 

 they should be carefully taken out of the pots, and each 

 planted into a separate pot filled with fresh earth, and then 

 plunged into the hot-bed again, where they may remain dur- 

 ing the summer season ; but at Michaelmas, when the 

 nights begin to be cold, they should be removed into the 

 stove, and plunged into the bark-bed. During the winter 

 season the plants must be kept warm, and watered twice a 

 week, but not in large quantities. In summer they demand 

 a greater share of air and more water, but they should re- 

 main constantly in the stove ; for though they will bear the 

 open air in summer in a warm situation, yet they will make 

 no progress if they be placed abroad ; nor do they thrive so 

 well in the dry-stove, as when they are plunged in the tan ; 

 so that the best way is to set them next a trellis, at the 

 back of the tan-bed, to which their branches may be 

 fastened, to prevent their trailing on other plants. 



27. Cactus Pnrtulaeifolius ; . Purslain-leaved Indian Fig. 

 Stem round, arboreous, thorny ; leaves wedge-form, retuse. 

 The stem is leafless, but armed with bundles of bristle-shaped 

 spines ; fruit roundish, having no tufts of leaves on it ; by 

 which it is distinguished from the foregoing, which it much 

 resembles. 



Cadia ; a genus of the class Decandria, order Monogynia. 

 GENERIC CHARACTER. Calix .- perianth one-leafed, five- 

 cornered, five- cleft. Corolla : petals five, equal, obcordate. 

 Stamina-, filamenta ten, filiform, equal, the length of the 

 petals or nearly so, protuberant at the base ; antherae ob- 

 long, rather sharp at the top, placed obliquely at the ends of 

 the filamenta. Pistil: germen linear ; style bowed ; stigma 

 acute. Pericarp: legume linear, compressed, bent at the 

 end, membraneous, many-seeded. Seeds: oblong, smooth. 

 ESSENTIAL CHARACTER. Calix : five-cleft. Petals: five, 



equal, obcordate. Legume: many-seeded. The only 



known species is. 



1. Cadia Purpurea ; Purple-flowered Cadia. This is a 

 shrub rising to the height of nearly three feet ; the brandies 

 and petioles are pubescent. Forskal observes, that the flowers 

 hang down ; that the corolla has sometimes six or seven pe- 

 tals, and that in such oases there are more stamina, fre- 

 quently twelve or fourteen ; and that there is no gland to the 

 antherae. Native of Arabia ; it has not flowered in England. 



Cxnopteris ; a genus of the class Cryptogamia, order Fill-' 

 ces. GENERIC CHARACTER. Fructifications : in submar- 

 ginal lateral lines, covered with a membrane, gaping on the 

 outside. The only species is, 



1. Caenopteris Rhizophylla. Frond bipinnate, rooting at 

 the tip ; pinnules obovate, somewhat sickle-shaped, petioled ; 

 primordial leaves lobed. Native of Dominica. 



CcEsalpinia ; a genus of the class Decandria, order Mono- 

 gynia. GENERIC CHARACTER. Calix : perianth one-leafed, 

 five-parted ; tube short ; segments oblong, deciduous, 

 the lowest longer than the rest, slightly arched. Corolla : 

 petals five, inserted into the throat of the calcyne tube, 

 unequal; lamina roundish. Stamina: filamenta ten, inserted 

 into the throat of the calix, filiform, woolly at the base, de- 

 clining ; antherae oblong, decumbent. Pistil : germen su- 

 perior, linear-oblong, compressed, attenuated at the base ; 

 3L 



