76 CACTACEOUS PLAIIT3. 



many years, long previous, it is said, to the conquest of that country, and 

 thence it was introduced to other districts of America and to India. The 

 exact date of its introduction to England is unknown, though it is said to 

 have been received at the Chelsea Botanic Garden before the year 1688, 

 where it was cultivated at that time. It was certainly included in the 

 Eltham collection in 1732, for a figure and description of the plant are given 

 in the "Hortus Elthamensis " under the name of Tuna mitiorflore sangulneo 

 cochinellifera. Since then it has been grown in most botanical gardens as 

 a curiosity. 



Cochineal. — Though obtained from several species of Opuntia as 

 well as the Nopalea cochinellifera, a notice of this product may more 

 appropriately accompany the description of the plant with which its 

 name has been principally associated. It is now generally known that 

 ordinary commercial cochineal consists of minute dried insects of the 

 order Hemiptera, related to the mealy bug and the Vine scale, which are 

 far too familiar pests in gardens. It bears the name of Coccus cacti, 

 deriving its second title from the plants upon which it lives, and to which 

 it is peculiar in the same way that other species of the genus are peculiar 

 to the Vine, the Pine Apple, the Orange, and the Oak. Several of the Coc- 

 cidse yield useful products, as the Lao insect, Coccus laeca, the Kermes 

 or Coccus ilioia that causes the galls upon Querous coocitera, and which 

 furnish a well-known and ancient dye. The most important of all is, how- 

 ever, the cochineal insect (fig. 14), the cultivation and exportation of which 

 has been an extensive trade in many tropical countries for a considerable 

 period. The male insect is furnished with two wings, and has two long^ 

 filaments proceeding from the tail ; it is very minute, and few in numbers 

 compared with the female, which is wingless, and stationary upon the 

 plant during the greater portion of her existence. Before producing its 

 eggs the female increases to three or four times its normal size, and the 

 legs and antennae being then invisible except on very close scrutiny, they 

 have much the appearance of small projections upon the surface of the 

 plant, or they might be readily mistaken for fruits or berries. It is in 

 this way that so many erroneous statements have been originated with 

 regard to the true nature of cochineal. Gerarde mentions them as 

 " Certaine excrescences which in course of time turn into insects." 

 Dampier also gives a circumstantial account, in which it is stated that 

 when the fruits open they are found full of red insects, and these being 

 disturbed take to flight, but hover about the plant until killed by the sun, 

 when they are collected in cloths. The value of cochineal as a brilliant 

 red dye was, however, early ascertained, and the cultivation gradually 

 extended in various districts of tropical America. It is related that in 

 1777 great efforts were made to introduce the insect and the Nopalea 



