NO. 9 NEOABBOTTIA, A NEW CACTUS GENUS BRITTON AND ROSE 3 



NEOABBOTTIA PANICULATA (Lam.) Britt. and Rose 



Cactus paniculatus Lam. Encyl. i: 540. 1783. 

 Ccreiis paniculatiis DC. Prodr. 3: 466. 1828. 



Six to ten nieter.s high or even higher ; trnnk woody, 30 cm. in 

 diameter, the wood close-grained, yellowish white ; bark of the trunk 

 1.5 cm. thick, brown, not spiny in age. smooth; branches 4 to 6 cm. 

 broad, strongly 4-ril)bed, rarely 5-ribbed, occasionally 6-ribbed or 

 winged: ribs thin, 1.5 to 2.5 cm. high, their margins somewhat 

 crenate, the areoles borne at the base of the sinuses, 1.5 to 2 cm. 

 apart ; spines 12 to 20, acicular, Ijrownish to gray, 2 cm. long or less ; 

 cephalium i to 1.5 cm. in diameter, becoming elongated and angled; 

 tiowers straight, 5 cm. long, with a limb about 3 cm. broad ; tube 6 

 to 7 mm. long, about 18 mm. in diameter, with walls 5 to 6 mm. 

 thick ; inner perianth segments greenish white, short-oblong, about 

 I cm. long, obtuse ; throat 18 mm. long, covered with numerous 

 filaments, these with a knee near the base and pressing against the 

 style ; stamens and style included ; ovary and flower tube tubercled, 

 the former with short tubercles, the latter with oblong ones (some- 

 times 1.5 cm. long), each ending in a depressed areole subtended b\- 

 a minute scale ; areoles bearing a tuft of brown felt and an occa- 

 sional brown bristle; fruit oblong in outline, 6 to 7 cm. long, 4 to 5.5 

 cm. in diameter, turgid, nearly naked; rind green, thick, hard; seeds 

 rounded above, cuneate at base, with a large lateral depressed hilum. 



Collected near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on the Cul-de-sac by Dr. 

 W. L. Abbott and Mr. E. C. Leonard, April, 1920 (no. 3500 ) ; also 

 at the same locality by Mr. H. M. Pilkington, December, 1920; also 

 a single branch by Dr. Paul Bartsch at Thomazeau in 1917 (no. 

 221). Here doubtless belongs W. Buch's specimen, described in a 

 note under Ccrcus panicitlatus by Dr. T. I'rban in his Flora Domin- 

 gensis.^ 



This ])lant was described by Plumier ^ as f ollow^s : Melocactus 

 arborescens, tetragonus, flore ex albido. This description was re- 

 peated by Tournefort," with the addition of a single word, in 1719. 

 Plumier's drawing of this plant was published long after his death 

 bv Burmann as plate 192 of the Plantarum Americanum and upon 

 this plate Lamarck based his Cactus paniculatus, which De Candolle 



^ Symbolre Antillanse seu Fundamenta Florje Indise Occidental! s, 8: 462. 1920. 

 '^ Catalogus Plantarum Americanum, 19. 1703. 

 ^ Histoire des Plantes, i: 653. 1719. 



