4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 72 



a little later took up as Cereiis paniculatus. Ever since, the plant 

 has usually passed under the latter name, with an occasional reversal 

 to the earlier one. 



Until recently, the species has been known only from this old 

 illustration and these brief descriptions. The Abbott and Leonard 

 material consists of wood sections and herbarium specimens of 

 branches, flowers, fruit, and seeds, supplemented by living specimens 

 and by fruit and flowers in formalin, together with several habit 

 photographs. These convince us that the plant l^elongs to neither 

 Cactus nor Cercus, but to an undescribed genus. In habit it resem- 

 bles Dcndrocercits^ its branches resemble Acanthocereiis, and the 

 small limb of the flower resembles Leptocereus; but the plant differs 

 from all of these in bearing several flowers at the ends of terminal 

 branches and in developing a kind of cephalium. In the last respect, 

 it approaches Neoraimondia, near which we would place it in our 

 present classification. 



Although at first Neoabbottia is weak and only 4-angled, suggest- 

 ing Acanthocereus, it forms ultimately a thick woody trunk. The 

 full-grown plant in habit and branches much resembles Dendrocereus 

 nudiHorus of eastern Cuba, but it has much smaller and different 

 flowers and seeds. 



The following remarks are from the careful field notes of Mr. 

 Pilkington, made in December, 1920. 



" Grows to a height of 50 feet, in light sandy arid soil of recent 

 ocean bottom. Known to natives as ' Gadasse.' No use is made of the 

 plant except burning the dead branches for torches. The wood so 

 used is called ' Bois Chandelle ' or ' Bois Flamboyant ' — ' Candle- 

 Wood ' and ' Flaming-Wood,' from the bright smokeless light. Fruit 

 falls when ripe ; rind soon decays, leaving seed in a mass retained 

 in shape by a mucilaginous pulp. The young plant develops a bul- 

 bous root with a simple upright stem made up of several joints and 

 later giving off lateral branches which come off from the upper end 

 of other branches ; the main stem is 4 to 6-winged, but as it grows 

 older becomes square, pentagonal, or hexagonal, according to the 

 original number of ribs on each joint, and in age terete or nearlv 

 so with the ribs showing as mere lines, bearing the scars of the old 

 spines ; the branches are more numerous on one side of the main 

 branch and these always lie in the same plane, the ribs when of the 

 same number being opposite those of the main joint. This dispo- 

 sition of the joints causes the main stem to bend or curve and the 

 whole has a striking resemblance to the flat antlers of moose and 



