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CACTUS CULTURE FOR AMATEURS, 



with sometimes a solitary spine in the centre of each cushion. 

 Fruit 1 inch long, egg-shaped, red, edible. West Indies, sometimes 

 used for fences and a capital one it makes. Var. rubescens has 

 narrower, longer leaves, glaucous-green above and tinged with red 

 below ; the spines on the old stems are shorter and more numerous 

 in each cushion. 



P. Bleo. 



A stout, branching shrub, having an erect stem, 3 inches or 

 more in diameter, with green bark and very large cushions of spines ; 

 cushion a round, hard mass of short, woolly hair, from which the 



Pig. 63. Pereskia Bleo. 



spines radiate in all directions ; longest spines 2 inches or more 

 in length ; one or two new ones are developed annually, and these 

 are bright red when young, almost black when old ; young branches 

 J to -y inch in diameter. Leaves 3 to 6 inches long by 1 to 2 inches 

 wide, oblong, pointed, with short petioles, and a small tuft of short, 

 brown hair, with three or more reddish spines, in the axil of each. 

 Flowers on the ends of the young, ripened branches, clustered in 

 the upper leaf-axils, each flower 2 inches across, petals, rosy-red 

 stamens whitish. Colombia. Probably P. gran di fora is the same as 



