44 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. 



The Litchi. Nephelium Litchi, or Euphoria Litchi. 

 (Nat. Ord. Sapindacea.) (Plate Y. fig. 20.) 



This very beautiful addition to our table-fruits is a very 

 recent introduction; the rapid passages lately made to and 

 from China and the East Indies, its native countries, having 

 alone made it possible. The berries are enclosed in a beau- 

 tifully marked, thin, reddish-brown shell, round, and about 

 the size of a small walnut. Before being packed, they are 

 dried artificially, so that the rich pulp with which they are 

 filled becomes dried and shrivelled up round the seed ; even 

 then however the flavour is exceedingly rich and delicate. 

 Few have yet been imported ; they have however been sold 

 in the Liverpool fruit-market as low as sixpence a dozen. 



Prickly Pear. Opuntia vulgaris. (Nat. Ord. Cactacete.) 

 (Plate Y. fig. 21.) 



Lately this fruit has found its way into our markets, pro- 

 bably from the south of Europe, where it is now abundantly 

 cultivated, and where it appears to thrive as well as in its 

 native country — the southern parts of North America. It 

 is a very elegant oval fruit, as large, or rather larger than a 

 hen's egg, of a golden-yellow colour, tinted on one side 

 with red or purple, and marked on various parts of its sur- 

 face with scars, upon which tufts of spines were placed, but 



