HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 259 



1J in diameter, beset with about thirty scales, having short brownish wool 

 in their axils, but entirely destitute of spines. Mr. Thurber informs me 

 that this specimen is unusually long ; the fruit, he says, is usually 2 or 3 

 inches long by 1J to 2 in diameter ; the color is green, reddish towards the 

 summit ; the remains of the flower fall off, leaving a broad and convex scar. 

 The pericarp has the hardness of a green cucumber, somewhat softer 

 towards the apex, and is about two lines thick : it bursts open on the plant 

 with three or mostly four irregular, interiorly red valves, which spread 

 horizontally, and appear like a red flower when seen at a distance, which 

 accounts for the feport of this species having red flowers. The crimson- 

 colored and rather insipid pulp has the consistency of a fresh fig; it com- 

 pletely separates from the rind, and drying up from the heat of the sun, 

 falls to the ground, or is beaten down, when it is collected by the natives 

 and rolled into balls, which keep several months, or is pressed for the thick 

 molasses-like sacharine juice which it contains. The innumerable seeds are 

 0-7 to 0-8 lines long. 



Another, apparently nearly allied species, was collected in Northern 

 Sonora. From the half of a flower before me, together with Mr. Thurber's 

 meagre notes, (other specimens unfortunately having been lost) I have 

 ventured to make out the following description : 



Cereus Thurberi n. sp.): erectus, elatior, e basi ramosus sub-14-costatus, 

 sulcis parum profundis, aculeis brevibus nigricantibus ; floribus tubuloso- 

 campanulatis virescenti-albidis ; ovario globoso sepalis 80-100 carnosis 

 squamiformibus triangularibus acutis imbricatis ad axillam villosis stipato ; 

 sepalis tubi inferioribus 24 lanceolatis acutiusculis axilla nudis, superioribus 

 20-25 orbiculato-obovatis obtusis ; petalis 16-20 obovato-spathulatis obtusis 

 crassis. 



Collected in June, 1851, in a rocky canon near the mountain pass of 

 Bacuachi, a small town on the road to Arispe, in Sonora ; afterwards found 

 with Cereus giganteus, near Santa Cruz : it abounds also near Magdalena 

 and Ures. Santa Cruz appears to be the northern limit of this species, 

 which does not extend to the Gila river. Stems four to twelve feet high, 

 many from the same base, six to ten inches in diameter, sometimes articu- 

 lated, occasionally branching above, with about fourteen ribs and shallow 

 grooves. Flowers greenish white, borne about a foot below the summit of 

 the stem. Dried flowers two and three-fourths inches long ; the tube nar- 

 rower, and more elongated than in O. giganteus; the globose ovary and the 

 naked and staminiferous part of the tube each about three-fourths of an inch 

 long ; free part of petals of the same length, and four lines wide. Anthers 



