THE CACTACEAE. 



228. Opuntia palmadora sp. nov. 



Plant often 3 meters high, sometimes even 5, but often low; trunk 

 sometimes 9 cm. in diameter, sometimes with brown, smooth bark, but 

 usually very spiny; branches numerous, usually erect, at times forming a 

 compact, almost globular top, at other times quite open; joints unusually 

 thin and narrow, i to 1.5 dm. long, generally erect, verj^ spiny; leaves 

 subulate, minute, 3 to 4 mm. long, green with reddish tips, found only on 

 very young joints; areoles filled with white wool; spines usually i to 4, 

 sometimes 6, from an areole, all yellow at first, in age white, the largest 

 one porrect, 3 cm. long; petals erect or only slightly spreading, brick-red 

 in color; stamens short, erect; filaments orange-colored; style cream-col- 

 ored; stigma-lobes white; ovary broadly turbinate, 2 cm. long, tubercu- 

 late; fruit small. 



Collected by Rose and Russell at Barrinha, Bahia, Brazil, June 

 7, 8, 1915 (No. 19787)- 



This plant is common in the semiarid parts of Bahia, where 

 it is known as palmadora or palmatoria. Johnston and Tryon 

 describe it briefly without giving it a name in their Report of the 

 Prickly-Pear TraveUing Commission, 104. 1914. 



Figure 250 represents joints of the type plant; figure 251 is from 

 a photograph of the wild plant from which the above was taken. 

 Series 26. SPINOSISSIMAE. 



Erect species, mostly tall, with terete, continuous, unjointed, usually 

 densely spiny trunks, the ultimate branches spreading or divaricate, flat, 

 usually elongated, spiny or sometimes unarmed; flowers small, yellow, 

 orange or red, or changing from yellow to red ; fruit fleshy. We recognize seven species, all natives 

 of the West Indies. The series represents the genus Consolea of Lemaire. 



-O. palmadora. 



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Fig. 252. — Opuntia nashii. 



Key to Species. 



Areoles of the joints distant, 2 to 4 cm. apart. 

 Spines few, 3 cm. long or less, or none. 



Areoles elevated, bearing 2 to 5 graj'ish spines 3 to 6 cm. long 229. 



Areoles scarcely elevated, spineless or with i to 4 weak yellow spines i to 2 cm. long . . . 230. 



Spines, when present, many, the older up to 12 cm. long 231. 



Areoles of the joints closer together, i to 1.5 cm. apart. 

 Spines of the trunk-areoles, or most of them, deflexed. 



Young spines straw-colored or whitish; plant up to 5 m. tall 232. 



Young spines purple; plant 6 dm. high or less 233. 



Spines of the trunk-areoles, when present, spreading. 



Joints distinctly reticulate-areolate, light green; ovary prominently tuberculate 234. 



Joints indistinctly reticulate-areolate, mostly dark green or reddish; ovary low-tuberculate 235. 



0. nashii 

 0. bahamana 

 0. macracantha 



0. spinosissima 

 0. millspaughii 



0. moniliformis 

 O. rubescens 



