274 



The; cactaceab. 



Plants 4 to 5 meters high, much branched; branches 6 to 7 cm. in diameter, the growing tips 

 very glaucous; ribs 7 or 8, strongly tuberculate, obtuse, separated by narrow intervals; areoles 

 small, circular, borne on the upper side of the tubercle, brown to black-felted ; spines i to 7, acicular, 

 the longest sometimes 2.5 cm. long, brown to black; flowers night-blooming, small, 4 cm. long, 

 greenish brown without ; inner perianth-segments rose-colored to white ( ?) ; ovary globose, glaucous, 

 tuberculate, its areoles brown-felted and bearing 3 to 7 acicular spines, the longest sometimes 

 2.5 cm. long and brown to black; fruit about 2 cm. in diameter, somewhat tubercled, bearing 

 clusters of spines at the areoles, red; pericarp thick, somewhat fleshy; pulp disappearing, leaving the 

 large seeds loose, these escaping by a basal pore as in Oreocereus and many of the Echinocactanae. 



Type locality: Mexico on red lava beds. 



Distribution: Central Mexico. 



In volume 11 of The Cactaceae (p. 18), we described this plant under Cereus but with 

 the statement that it was not a true Cereus ; we were not then able to refer it to any known 

 genus. At that time we knew little about the flowers and nothing accurate about the 

 ovary and fruit. In 1921 Professor K. Reiche sent us some living plants from Iguala, 

 the station from which Dr. Rose obtained his plants in 1905. These contained some old 

 withered flowers and some well-developed ovaries which have enabled us to refer the plant 

 to Lemaireocereus . 



Figure 247 is from a photograph of K. Reiche's plant, slightly reduced, showing the 

 top of a branch bearing an old flower and a half -ripe fruit. 



Fig. 247. — Lemaireocereus beneckei. 



On page 98, vol. 11, under Lemaireocereus thurberi, add to illustrations: Journ. N. Y. 

 Bot. Gard. 3: f. 13, as Cereus thurberi; Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. 56: pi. 8, f. 2; Karsten and 

 Schenck, Vegetationsbilder 13: pi. 15; 21, f. a; Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 16: pi. 125, a; 

 Amer. Bot. 20: 88. 



On page 108, vol. 11, under Bergerocactus emoryi, add to illustrations: Cact. Journ. 

 i: 59; Gartenwelt 11: 498, as Cereus emoryi. 



On page in, vol. 11, under Wilcoxia poselgeri, add to illustrations: Remark, Kakteen- 

 freund 6; Deutsche Garten-Zeitung 1886: f. 25, as Cereus tuberosus. 



