494 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
family—the Opuntia, for instance—we find the stem more or less 
flattened, with oval or oblong articulations, bearing bunches of 
needle-like hairs, and without any median neryure. The flowers 
in Opuntia are quite magnificent. Nothing is more curious than 
these large corollas clothed in the most vivid colours, which are 
so planted as to seem to be nailed upon the strong, prickly, and 
succulent rugged stem of the plants. The flowers seem to spring 
from the branches of hair, or from the edges of the articulations ; 
they are white, red, or yellow, according to the species. Their 
stamens are endowed with great irritability. The fruit, of various 
size and colour, is eatable, and not unlike a large gooseberry in 
form and taste. 
The Prickly Pear, or Indian Fig (Opuntia vulgaris), is a plant 
originally from the West Indies or America. The Opuntia bears a 
large comestible fruit. It has long been naturalised in the south of 
Europe, in Spain, Italy, Sicily, Greece, &c., where it is cultivated 
to make hedges and enclosures, its fruit being, to a considerable 
extent, the food of the inhabitants of these countries. 0. cochinil- 
lifera is the plant on which the cochineal insect feeds and breeds. 
This is the little insect which produces the rich coloured pigment, 
employed in the manufacture of carmine. 
*- The Arens, or Torch Thistle, has continuous angular stems, the 
angles charged with bunches of hairy prickles. The flowers 
are large and beautiful. Those of the Torch Thistle of Peru are 
4 
solitary, about six inches in length, white within, greenish for the 
length of the tube, and rose colour upon the exterior limb. 
It is to the genus Cereus that the gigantic species indigenous to 
Mexico and California belong. The stem of this vegetable wonder, 
flanked by its branches, resembles an immense candelabrum, fifteen 
yards high. In the engraving (Plate XXI.) we givea representation 
of the gigantic Cereus of Mexico, taken from an American work, 
entitled “Report of Explorations on the Mississippi,” &e. The 
Echino cactus, originally from America, is frequently 
cotonous excrescences, provided with short and spreading spines. 
It is from the centre of these thorny tubercules that the flow 
cultivated in 
this country. Its stems, clustered together in the shape ofanegS 
or sphere, present longitudinal sides separated by straight farce Me 
These sides are furnished on their whole length with whi ce 
