GRIFFITHS: NEW AND OLD SPECIES OF OPUNTIA 199 
scales white, thin and almost fimbriate, flowers yellow, turning 
slightly orange late in the day, 5 cm. in diameter, filaments light 
yellow, style white or slightly tinted above, stigma very light green, 
conical, 8—-10-parted; fruit large, pyriform, about 55 x 90 mm. with 
flat flower scar, greenish white, with large, subcircular, brown 
areoles, about 3 mm. in diameter, bearing a compact tuft of yellow 
spicules I mm. long in center and 1 to 5 delicate, fugacious spines 
below. 
The species is known to me from a single number which was 
received from Senor Ambrosio Eschauzier, of Seville, Spain. 
It was received under the common name ‘‘Americanos.” It is 
quite distinct from anything else which we have cultivated, par- 
ticularly in its habit of growth, shape of its joints, and spination. 
In some of its vegetative characters it resembles most closely 
O. gymnocarpa A. Weber, but differs from that species in being 
exceedingly spiny in its branching habits and in color and general 
character of its fruit. The fruit has considerable similarity that to 
of O. elongata Haw., and the nature of the branching is also similar 
to that species. It is rapid of growth and new growth starts each 
year from just below the tip of the last joint, making a very open, 
awkward species to handle in the field on account of its widely 
spreading and even somewhat drooping habit of branching. 
The species is quite hardy at Chico, California, having been 
only slightly injured during the severe freeze of 1913. The fruits 
are edible and belong to the “blanca” group of the Mexicans, 
in which the expressed juice is limpid with no solids in suspension. 
The type is carried in our collection under Seed and Plant 
Introduction No. 15840, and was secured from Sr. Ambrosio 
Eschauzier, Seville, Spain, through the kindness of Sr. Francisco 
Eschauzier, San Luis Potosi, Mexico. There is little doubt that it 
is of Mexican origin, but it is known to me only from this inven- 
tory number. 
Opuntia chata sp. nov. 
An arborescent, compact, erect to ascending species 2-3 m. 
or more high and with an equivalent spread of branch; joints sub- 
circular to broadly obovate 24 x 32 cm. or often only 18-20 cm. in 
diameter; glaucous, gray-green, slightly raised at areoles; areoles 
broadly obovate on sides of joints, more narrow on edges, brown, 
turning dirty black, 2-3 mm. long, becoming subcircular and 
