44 



THE CACTACEAE. 



Plants solitary or in clusters forming mounds 3 to '1 dm. in diameter, globular, with prominent 

 tubercles; areoles large, woolly; radial spines about 16, rather delicate, radiating, white; centrals 4 

 to 6, divergent, much stouter, brownish, swollen at base; ovary green, naked; outer perianth-seg- 

 ments greenish; inner ones somewhat pinkish, long-cihate; innermost perianth-segments pinkish 

 purple, narrow, acuminate, entire, spreading; filaments much shorter than the segments, pinkish, 

 but paler below; style greenish to purple above, longer than the stamens ; stigma-lobes linear, purple, 

 about 8, apiculate; fruit green when mature, juicy, nearly globular, 1.5 cm. in diameter, with several 

 (sometimes 5 or 6) small ciliate scales scattered over its surface; seeds light brown, 1.5 mm. long. 



Type locality: "Near the Mandan towns on the Missouri, lat. near 49°." 

 Distribution: Manitoba to Alberta, Kansas, south' to northern Texas and Colorado. 

 The group to which Coryphantha vivipara belongs has always been very puzzling. 

 Dr. Engelmann, our greatest authority on this group, was sometimes of one opinion and 



Fig. 42. — Coryphantha chlorantha. 



Fig. 43. — Coryphantha neo-mexicana. 



sometimes of another. Schumann rejected the specific name vivipara of Haworth for this 

 plant since he thought that it was not the same as the vivipara of Engelmann, but in this he 

 must be wrong, for Mainmillaria vivipara Haworth was based upon Cactus viviparus Pursh, 

 a name previously used by Nuttall, and both Pursh's and Nuttall's descriptions were 

 based on the specimens collected by Nuttall in "Upper Louisiana" in 1812. This is 

 undoubtedly the plant which Engelmann had in mind and which he called variety 

 vera. We have not seen the type, but Pursh stated that he had seen flowers in Lambert's 

 Garden. 



Engelmann's remarks regarding the variability of the species are interesting. In the 

 Proceedings of the American Academy (3: 269) he says: 



"The extreme forms are certainly very unlike one another, but the transitions are so gradual 

 that I can not draw strict limits between them." 



Coryphantha vivipara and the three following species are closely related. 



This plant is a day bloomer, and according to Engelmann the flowers become fully 

 expanded about one o'clock in the afternoon. 



Hooker in Curtis's Botanical Magazine (pi. 7718) figures and describes a plant pur- 

 chased from D. M. Andrews of Boulder, Colorado, in which all the spines are brown, the 

 flower is rose-red, and the stigma-lobes are linear and white. 



