. 158 STURTEV ant's NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 



C. enneacanthus Engelm. 



Southwestern North America. The berry is pleasant to eat.* 



C. fendleri Engelm. 



New Mexico. The purplish-green fruit is edible.'' 



C. giganteus Engelm. 



Texas. This cactus yields a fruit sweet and delicious. The Indians collect it in 

 large quantities and make a sirup or conserve from the juice, which serves them as a luxtiry 

 as well as for sustenance. The Mexicans call the tree suwarrow; the Indians, harsee. The 

 sirup manufactured from the juice is called sistor.^ Engelmann says the crimson-colored 

 pulp is sweet, rather insipid and of the consistency of a fresh fig. Hodge,* in Arizona, 

 calls the fruit delicious, having the combined flavor of the peach, strawberry and fig. 



C. greggii Engelm. 



Texas. The plant has a bright scarlet, fleshy, edible berry.* 



C. polyacanthus Engelm. 



Texas. It bears a berry of a pleasant taste.' 



C. quisco C. Gay 



Chile. The sweetish, mucilaginous fruits are available for desserts.' 



C. thurberi Engelm. 



New Mexico. This plant grows in the Papago Indian country on the borders of 

 Arizona and Sonora and attains a height of 18 to 20 feet and a diameter of four to six inches 

 and bears two crops of fruit a year. The fruit is, according to Engelmann, three inches 

 through, like a large orange, of delicious taste, the crimson pulp being dotted with numerous, 

 black seeds. The seeds, after passing through the digestive canal, are collected, according 

 to Baegert and Clavigero,' and pounded into a meal used in forming a food. Venegas,' 

 in his History of California, describes the fruit as growing to the boughs, the pulp resembling 

 that of a fig only more soft and luscious. In some, it is white; in some red; and in others 

 yellow but always of an exquisite taste; some again are wholly sweet, others of a grateful 

 acid. This cactus is called pithaya by the Mexicans and affords a staple sustenance for 

 the Papago Indians. 



Ceropegia bulbosa Roxb. Asclepiadeae. 



East Indies. Roxburgh '" says, " men eat every part." 



' Fendler, A., and Gray, A. PL Fettdl. 50. 1849. 

 ' Ibid. 

 , Bigdow Pacific R. R. Rpt. 4: 13. 1856. 



* Hodge, H.C. Ariz. 243. 1877. 



'Fendler, A., and Gray, A. PL Fendl. 50. 1849. 



* Ibid. 



'Mueller,?. SeL Pis. 106. 1891. 



* Smithsonian Inst. Rpt. 365. 1863. 

 'Venegas ffij<. Ca/. 1:42. 1759. 



"' Roxburgh, W. Pis. Coram. Coast 1:11, t. 7. 1795. 



