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THE CACTACEAE. 
ii: 498; Karsten, Deutsche FI. 887. f. 501, No. 1; ed. 2. 2: 456. f. 605, No. 1; Diet. Hort. 
Bois 826. f. 578; Nov. Act. Nat. Cur. 18: Suppl. 1. pi. 1, f. 2; Lemaire, Cactees 29. f. 1; 
Palmer, Cult. Cact. 105; Rev. Hort. 1857: f. 124, as Melocactus communis; Hort. Ripul. 
App. 3: pi. 7, as Cactus communis; Besler, Hort. Eystett. 4. Ord. f. 1; De Candolle, PI. 
Succ. 2: pi. 1 12; De Tussac, FI. Antill. 2: pi. 27; Loudon, Encycl. PI. 410. f. 6848; Stand. 
Cycl. Hort. Bailey 2: 613. f. 731. 
3 . Cactus lemairei (Monville). 
Melocactus communis oblongus Link and Otto, Verh. Ver. Beford. Gartenb. 3: 418. 1827. 
Melocactus communis macrocephalus Link and Otto, Verh. Ver. Beford. Gartenb. 3: 418. 1827. 
Echinocactus intortus purpureus De Candolle, Prodr. 3: 462. 1828. 
? Melocactus communis conicus Pfeiffer, Enum. Cact. 43. 1837. 
Echinocactus lemarii* Monville in Lemaire, Cact. Aliq. Nov. 17. 1838. 
Melocactus crassispinus Salm-Dyck, Allg. Gartenz. 8: 10. 1840. 
Melocactus lemarii* Miquel in Lemaire, Hort. Univ. 1: 286. 1839. 
Melocactus hispaniolicus Vaupel, Monatsschr. Kakteenk. 29: 121. 1919. 
Plant usually rather slender, 2 to 3 dm. high and sometimes 2 dm. in diameter, but young 
plants sometimes broader than high; flowering plants crowned by a slender cephalium sometimes 1 
dm. high, made up of white wool and brown bristles; areoles large, very woolly when young; ribs 9 
or 10; spines 8 to 13 in a cluster, all stout, more or less flattened, 2 to 3 cm. long, horn-colored or 
somewhat brownish; central spines usually one on young plants, but 2 or 3 on old ones; flowers rose, 
about 2 cm. long, 15 mm. broad when fully expanded, exserted about 12 mm. above the cephalium; 
outer perianth-segments obtuse, the inner acute, serrate near the tip; fruit pinkish, slender, 2 cm. 
long, naked; seeds black, tuberculate. 
Type locality: Santo Domingo. 
Distribution: Deserts of Hispaniola. 
Collected at Azua, Santo Domingo, in March 1913, by J. N. Rose (No. 3832). Living 
material was sent both to the New York Botanical Garden and to Washington. 
The Santo Domingan plant, although it has long been known, has been confused with 
another species. The trouble began in 1827 when Link and Otto redescribed Cactus 
macracanthus under Melocactus and gave the habitat of the species as Santo Domingo. 
Salm-Dyck, who described Cactus macracanthus first in 1820, did not give a definite 
locality. Flaworth, however, in 1821 told about seeing a specimen of this species from 
Holland, which had been sent from South America, and which might have been sent from 
the Dutch Colony at Curasao; while Salm-Dyck, in redescribing his species in 1834, gives 
Curagao definitely as the locality for it. In 1837 Pfeiffer referred material from both 
Curagao and Santo Domingo to this species and he has been followed by most writers 
since. It seems almost certain that the Santo Domingan species can not be the Cactus 
macracanthus of Salm-Dyck. 
In 1839 Lemaire figured and described a species of Miquel’s, Melocactus lemarii f (Hort. 
Univ. 1: 286), which was redescribed by Miquel the next year in his monograph on the genus 
Melocactus. This species came from Santo Domingo and is undoubtedly the same as the 
one which has been passing as Melocactus macracanthus. 
Melocactus communis oblongus and M. communis macrocephalus (Link and Otto, Verh. 
Ver. Beford. Gartenb. 3: 418. 1827) were assigned to Santo Domingo by Pfeiffer and, if 
from that island, are presumably to be referred here. 
This plant is very common in the arid plain about Azua in southern Santo Domingo. 
It grows with other cacti and desert shrubs. 
Illustrations: Hort. Univ. 1: pi. 35; Herb. Gener. Amat. II. 2: pi. 36, as Melocactus 
lemarii; Descourtilz, FI. Med. Antill. 7: pi. 515, as Cactier rouge main (fide Urban); Nov. 
Act. Nat. Cur. 18: Suppl. 1. pi. 4, f. 3, as Melocactus communis macrocephalus. 
*This name was originally published as lemarii, although named for Charles Lemaire. 
fThis is evidently the same plant which he described in 1838 as Echinocactus lemarii. 
