GRIFFITHS: NEW AND OLD SPECIES OF OPUNTIA 205 
almost solid mass of fruit over the periphery of the plant. In 
Texas the growth is even more rampant, but the fruit production 
is much more restricted. It has been secured by us from various 
situations from the Carolinas to the east coast of Florida, and has 
been observed at one or two points on the west coast as well. 
The specimen upon which this discussion is based has been 
carried under my inventory No. 8286, and was sent to me in 
1906 by Mr. Harmon Benton from Georgia. He found it growing 
in a yard in Savannah. 
Opuntia amarilla sp. nov. 
A tall, open-branched tree 2.5-4 m. high with widely spreading 
branches, but in our cultivated plantation with vegetatively 
propagated plants not trimmed they are headed on the ground; 
joints glaucous blue-green, oval to obovate, mostly 17-20 x 35-38 
cm. but very variable, turning slightly yellower and losing bloom, 
and becoming scaly black on old trunks; areoles brown, oval, 
larging in age to subcircular and 5-6 mm. in diameter; leaves 
conical, cuspidate, 3-4 mm. long, usually tinted at tip; spicules 
light yellow, inconspicuous or even invisible until late in the season, 
situated in a compact tuft in upper part of areole and not over 
I mm. long, more prominent at base of joints; spines white with 
translucent tips, porrect, diverging in all directions, on one-year- 
old joints usually 2 to 5, nearly all.areoles armed, mostly 3 or 4, 
porrect, diverging in all directions, the central upper one reaching 
a maximum length of 3-4 cm., the lower 1 cm. long and the lateral 
ones midway between, increasing in number and length with age 
up to about 3 years, flattened, twisted, especially in age; buds 
rounded to bluntly pointed, dull dark olive with tinge of dull 
dark greenish-red at tip; flowers orange with darker center, having 
a tinge of red at base, filaments greenish below tinged with pink 
above, style red, stigma medium, dark green, 8-parted (one hour 
after anthesis), old flower turning deeper orange-red as day ad- 
vances and distinct pinkish-red when closed; fruit large, obovate, 
50-6 100 mm., at first turning yellowish but soon showing 
streaks and blotches of red in deeper tissues and finally becoming 
completely dull red with the stipe and the raised areoles at the 
apex usually remaining more or less yellow, even at complete 
maturity, rind yellowish and pulp light red; seeds medium sized, 
comparatively few in number and easily separable from the pulp, 
its areoles broadly obovate to subcircular, 2 mm. long, brown, 
10-12 mm. apart with brown, prominent wool completely sur- 
