688 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



Joints green or purple, their tubercles narrow, ovate ; spines white to reddish brown ; 

 flowers purple ; fruit yellow, sparingly spinescent, rarely proliferous. 



2. O. spinosior (H). 



Tubercles of the branches not full and rounded below the areolae ; joints elongated, dark 

 green or purple, their tubercles elongated ; spines brown or reddish brown ; flowers green, 

 tinted with red or yellow ; fruit green, spinescent, rarely proliferous. 



3. O. versicolor (H). 



1. Opuntia fulgida, Engelm. Cliolla. 



Leaves light green, gradually narrowed to the acuminate apex, ^'-1' long. 

 Flowers appearing from June to September, the earliest from tubercles at the ends 



of the branches of the previous year, the others from the terminal tubercles of the 

 immature fruit developed from the earliest flowers of the season, 1' in diameter 

 when fully expanded, with ovaries nearly 1' long, 8-10 obtuse crenulate sepals, 5 

 erect stigmas, and 8 light pink petals, those of the outer ranks cuneate, retuse, crenu- 

 late on the margins, shorter than the lanceolate acute petals of the inner ranks, the 

 whole strongly reflexed at maturity. Fruit proliferous, oval, rounded, 1' 1^' long 

 and nearly as broad, more or less tuberculate, conspicuously marked by large pale 

 tomentose areolse bearing numerous small bristles, usually spineless or occasionally 

 armed with small weak spines, hanging in pendulous clusters usually of 6 or 7 and 

 occasionally of 40-50 fruits in a cluster, one growing from the other in continuous 

 succession, the first the largest and containing perfect seeds, the others frequently 

 sterile, dull green when fully ripe, with dry flesh, falling usually during the first 

 winter or occasionally persistent on the branches during the second season, and then 

 developing flowers from the tubercles; seeds compressed, thin, very angular, T V~ff' 

 in diameter. 



A tree, with a more or less flexuous trunk occasionally 12 in height and some- 

 times a foot in diameter, a symmetrical head of stout wide-spreading branches and 

 thick pendulous joints sometimes almost hidden by the long conspicuous spines and 

 beginning to develop their woody skeletons during their second or occasionally during 

 their third season, the terminal or ultimate joints ovate or ovate-cylindrical, tumid, 

 crowded at the ends of the limbs, pale olive color, 3'-8' long, often 2' in diameter, 

 with broad ovate-oblong tubercles, ^'-f' long. Areolae of pale straw-colored 



