OPUNTIA TUNA MISSION CACTUS, INDIAN FIG, PRICKLY PEAR. 37 



which disappears when the stems are cut and dried, and only the 

 framework remains. These skeletons of cactus stems and leaves, 

 some of them beautiful specimens of filagree, persist for a time after 

 the plant has died, bleached white and bestrown over the ground of 

 the cactus regions. 



USES. The principal use of the Opuntia Tuna with us is for 

 ornamental planting and for hedges, and most effective barriers do they 

 make, owing to their many strong and exceedingly sharp spines. 

 They were quite generally planted about mission walls in southern 

 California in early days, and we can imagine invading Indians must 

 have considered it worse to pass than the adobe wall itself. The 

 plant has also been used extensively for hedges in southern Europe, 

 and we learn that when the Island of St. Christopher was to be divided 

 between the English and French three rows of this cactus were planted 

 by common consent along the boundaries. The fruit is edible but 

 unless the numerous minute hair-like prickles are thoroughly wiped 

 off and rind removed before trying to eat it the barbed prickles are 

 sure to become lodged in the lining of the mouth and annoy one for 

 some days after 



This is a favorite species of Cactus for supporting the cochineal insect, 

 an industry principally of Mexico, Central America and the Canary 

 Islands. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are not recorded of this species. 



ORDER CORNACE.ffi : DOGWOOD FAMILY. 



Leaves opposite (except in one species) simple, mostly entire. Flowers in cymes 

 often involucrate, polypetalous (exceptionally apetalous), 4-numerous ; calyx-tube 

 adherent to the ovary, its limb minute ; petals valvate in the bud, oblong, sessile 

 and, with the stamens, borne on an epigynous disk in the perfect flowers ; ovary 

 1-celled, bearing a single suspended ovule ; style single, somewhat club shaped. 

 Fruit a 1-2 seeded baccate drupe, bearing the persistent limb of the calyx. 



Trees, shrubs or rarely herbs, with bitter, tonic bark. 



/ 



GENUS CORNUS, TOURNEFORT. 



Leaves opposite (excepting one species, G. alter nifolia), simple, deciduous, entire, 

 without stipules and clustered at the ends of the branchlets; bud-scales accrescent. 

 Flowers perfect (in some foreign species dioecious), small, 4-numerous, in naked 

 cymes, or in heads surrounded by a corolla-like involucre ; calyx with 4 minute 

 segments; petals distinct, oblong, spreading, sessile; stamens exserted, with slender 

 filaments ; pistil solitary, with slender style, terminal stigma and inferior ovary; 

 cells usually 2, each containing a single suspended ovule. Fruit a small drupe 

 containing a 2-celled and 2-seeded stone ; seeds oblong, with embyro straight or 

 nearly so and surrounded with copious albumen. 



Trees, shrubs and perennial herbs with bitter tonic bark, chiefly of the northern 

 temperate zone of both hemispheres. (Cornus is the Latin for horn, in allusion 

 to the hardness of the wood. ) 



