LEMAIREOCEREUS. 95 



This species is common on all the hills about La Guayra, is less common in the moun- 

 tains toward Caracas, and is also to be found along the coast at Puerto Cabello. About 

 towns it is much used as a hedge plant. 



Figure 138 is from a photograph taken by Mrs. J. N. Rose near Puerto Cabello, 

 Venezuela, in 1916. 



Fig. 137. — Lemaireocereus trel< 



14. Lemaireocereus weberi (Coulter) Britton and Rose, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 12: 426. 1909. 



Cereus weberi Coulter, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 3: 410. 1896. 



Cereus candelabrum Weber in Schumann, Gesamtb. Kakteen 106. 1897. 



Plant very large, 10 meters high or more, with a trunk short but thick and often with hundreds 

 of nearly erect branches arising from near the base, dark bluish green, slightly glaucous; ribs usually 

 10, rounded; areoles large; radial spines usually 6 to 12, spreading, more or less acicular, 1 to 2 cm. 

 long; central spine usually up to 10 cm. long, solitary, flattened, often more or less deflexed, except 

 those of the upper areoles, at first brown to blackish, much longer than the laterals; areoles white- 

 felted; flowers 8 to 10 em. long; scales on flower-tube narrow, thin, bearing long brown hairs in their 

 axils; inner perianth-segments oblong, 2 cm. long; ovary globular, covered by the dense brown felt 

 of its areoles; fruit oblong, edible, 6 to 7 cm. long, very spiny, the spine-clusters deciduous in 

 ripening. 



Type locality: A few miles south of Tehuacan, Puebla, Mexico. 

 Distribution: Puebla and Oaxaca, Mexico. 



