= 
Begonia] LXIV. BEGONIACER. 404 
Nov. 1856. No. 874. An annual erect herb, 2 ft. high; branches 
erect-spreading ; fruits nodding, one wing produced to a considerable 
length like a beak. In rocky, half-shady places at the sides of a 
stream in Barrancos da Pedra Songue within the fortress ; ripe fr. 
(also a young plant) Nov. 1856. No. 8740. 
LXV. CACTACEA. 
Previously to Welwitsch’s Angolan journey, the occurrence of 
any member of this family in the Old World had been denied ; 
“ America is the exclusive station of the order, no species appearing 
to be native of any other part of the world” (Lindl. Veg. Kingd., 
edit. 3, p. 747 (1853)). It was therefore with much surprise and 
satisfaction that Welwitsch, in the primeval forests of Sobato 
Quilombo-Quiacatubia in Golungo Alto, met with specimens of 
a Hariota, which were suspended in long spikes, covered with thin 
white berries, on the mossy branches of species of Edwardia and 
Adansonia; a variety was also found hanging down from the 
most elevated rocks of the fortress of Pungo Andongo, where it 
grew abundantly in company with species of Sarcostemma and 
low Stapeliee. Thus an important problem in phytogeography 
was conclusively solved ; the genus had, however, been previously 
reported from extra-tropical South Africa, 
The extensive rocky and dry declivities about Pungo Andongo, 
little susceptible of any other cultivation, would supply a ground 
particularly well adapted for attempting on a large scale the 
planting of Opuntia or Nopalea coccinellifera Salm-Dyck, which 
would doubtless thrive there and furnish a new and valuable 
article of commerce for that country. See Welwitsch, Apont. 
p. 556, n. 131, and Sert. Angol., p. 35. 
1. HARIOTA Adans. Fam. Pl. ii. p. 243 (1763). Rhipsalis 
Gaertn. (1788); Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. Pl. i. p. 850. 
1. H. parasitica O. Kuntze, Rev. Gen. Pl. i. p. 262 (1891). 
Cactus parasiticus Li. Syst. Nat. (ii.), edit. 10, p. 1054 (1759). 
Rhipsalis Cassutha Gaertn. Fruct. i. p. 137, t. 28, f. 1 (1788) ; Oliv. 
Fl. Trop. Afr. ii. p. 581 (Cassytha). R. ethiopica Welw. in Journ. 
Linn. Soe. iii, p. 152 (1859). 
Go.tuneo ALto.—A parasitical shrub, 4 to 8 ft. long or more, with 
glaucous-green stem and branches hanging down a long distance and 
growing on the mossy branches of Edwardia lurida and Adansonia 
digitata. In very elevated primitive forests in Sobato Quilombo- 
Quiacatubia, abundant ; scarcely ripe fr. Feb. 1855 ; without either fl. 
or fr. July 1856. The branches throw out adventitious roots from 
the nodes, No. 876. A fleshy little shrub, with nodding green-reddish 
branches, decked with crowded fascicles of tawny setose hairs. Young 
specimens, parasites on the mossy branches of Edwardia lurida Raf., 
at the same locality as the last No.; without fi. or fr. Feb. 1855. 
No. 877. Cou. Carp. 620 and 6208. 
Punco AnDonco.—A pendulous evergreen shrub, 4 to 9 ft. long and 
more, very much branched ; stems scarcely as thick as the little finger, 
