TACINGA. 



39 



brown, 2 cm. long or less; flowers rather small, including ovary and stamens 4 cm. long; filaments 

 numerous, long-exserted; style much longer than the stamens; stigma-lobes 5, green; fruit smally 

 red, 1.5 cm. long. 



Type locality: In Yucatan, Mexico. 



Distribution: Yucatan. 



Dr. Griffiths states that he found this species in the Albert S. White Park, Riverside, 

 California, in 1904. In the Bulletin of the New Mexico Agricultural Experiment Station 

 No. 60 he describes and illustrates it, but without specific name. Later he identified it as 

 the same as one of Schott's specimens from Yucatan, and then published it as above. 



Dr. Griffiths compares it with A'', auberi, but its nearest relative is A", kariiinskiana, 

 from which it differs in its smaller and more tuberculate joints and much smaller flowers. 



Illustration: N. Mex. Agr. Exp. Sta. Bull. 60 : pi. 3, f. i, as Nopalea. 



Figure 44 shows a joint from a plant obtained by Dr. David Griffiths at Riverside. 



4. TACINGA gen. nov. 



Long, clambering or climbing cacti, more or less branched; old stems smooth, brown; branches 

 faintly ribbed, terete; young branches green, each tipped with a tuft of long wool or soft hairs; are- 

 oles small but conspicuous, black, the margin giving off long, white, cobwebby hairs; leaves minute, 

 soon deciduous, 3 to 4 mm. long; spines sometimes present, on j^oung joints 2 or 3, reflexed, 

 appressed, brown, 2 to 3 mm. long, not seen on old branches; glochids from the upper parts ofjthe 

 areoles, pale yellow, numerous, caducous, falling in showers at the slightest jarring of the branch; 

 flower-buds acute; flowers usually terminal, opening in the evening or at night; ovary narrow, 

 bearing numerous areoles, the umbilicus very deep ; petals few, spreading or recurved ; a row of hairs 

 between the petals and the stamens ; stamens and style erect, much longer than the petals ; fruit 

 oblong, the upper half sterile, bearing areoles but no spines; seeds nearly globular, white, covered 

 with a bony aril. 



This genus is intermediate between 

 Opuntia and Nopalea, having the erect, 

 non-sensitive stamens of the latter, 

 and the areoles, leaves, and glochids of 

 the former. From Opuntia it differs in 

 its narrow, green, recurved petals, in 

 having one or possibly more rows of 

 hairs between the stamens and the 

 petals, in the clambering or climbing 

 habit, and its very caducous glochids. 



Only one species is known, this 

 a common and characteristic plant of 

 the catinga* in Bahia, Brazil, w'hence 

 the anagramatic name. 



1. Tacinga funalis sp. nov 



At first erect, then climbing over shrubs 

 or through trees, i to 1 2 meters long, some- 

 what branching; old stems wood}^ slender; 

 branches usually reddish, the areoles borne 

 on low ribs; glochids short; flower, includ- 

 ing ovary, 7 to 8 cm. long; sepals about 10, 

 short, ovate, acute, 5 to 15 mm. long; petals 

 about 7, green, 4 cm. long, acute, revolute; 

 stamens erect, connivent, not sensitive; anthers narrow, elongated; style elongated, thread-like, 

 most slender below, a little longer than the stamens, 4.5 cm. long, cream-colored; stigma-lobes 5, 

 green; fruit 4 to 5 cm. long; seeds 3 to 4 mm. broad. 



* Catinga or caatinga is the common Brazilian name for the thorn-bush desert region in Bahia, Brazil. Dr- 

 Albert Lof gren says that the name (best spelled caatinga) is of Indian origin, meaning caa = wood, forest ; tinga = white, 

 clear; a forest in which one can see far. 



Fig. 49. — Tacinga funalis. Showing how it climbs over bushes. 



