NOPALEA. 75 



angular or quadrangular stems, and white or rose-tinted flowers. The fruits 

 are globular, half inch in diameter, semi-transparent, and of a violet hue. 

 It is interesting botauioally, but is seldom seen in collections. 



NOPALEA, Salm Dyc%. 

 (The Nopal or Cochineal Caotus.) 



As regards their economic value the true Indian Figs — namely, the 

 Nopaleas and the Opuntias, are by far the most important of the whole 

 family, and they are the only ones which have ever been cultivated on a 

 large scale as commercial products. They therefore possess considerable 

 interest, though with a few exceptions they are much less ornamental than 

 numbers of their allies, and are in consequence not greatly appreciated as 

 garden plants. They have strangely grotesque and frequently formidable 

 stems, armed with long and powerful spines, meriting in more than one 

 instance the name " horrida," which is very aptly applied to a particularly 

 spiny Opuntia, It is this character that readers many of the plants useful 

 in tropical countries as hedges or barricades, which are absolutely impass- 

 able to wild animals, and form most durable marks of division between 

 estates or even the possessions of different nations. The genus Nopalea, 

 however, only contains three species of Indian Fig, all of which are com- 

 para'ively free from spines ; and two of these — viz., N. dejecta and N. 

 Auberi, are not marked by any qualities of especial value, but the third, 

 N. ooohinellifera, is the widely known and highly important Cochineal 

 Cactus. All these have been described as Opuntias, but were separated 

 from that genus by a few characters which to anyone but a botanist would 

 appear of little consequence. These are chiefly the erect petals slightly 

 approaching each other at the apex, the stamens longer than the corolla, 

 the red or crimson flowers, and the nearly spineless branches. In other 

 respects they closely resemble the Opuntias, the stems being succulent, 

 flat, leafless, and branching, the branches roundish or elliptical, and bearing 

 the blooms upon their margins. 



Nopalea ooohinellifera, Salm Dyck. — There is not much to recom- 

 ciend this plant to attention beyond its product the cochineal, as its flowers 

 are not particularly handsome, and the general aspect is ungainly in the 

 extreme. It attains a height of 10 or 12 feet, is much branched, of a dark 

 green colour, the surface smooth and free from any but very small spines. 

 The flowers are of moderate size, crimson, and are followed by a fruit similar 

 to the Prickly Pears which are imported to this country and sold in the 

 liondon markets. The plant has been long known to botanists, having been 

 described by most of the earlier travellers in Mexico, the West Indies, and 

 other parts of America, though it has been to some extent confounded with 

 Opuntia Tuna. In Mexico these plants have been cultivated for a great 



