ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS. XIX. 



valuable; one is almost harmless. The most commonly 

 diffused one of New South Wales and Queensland is known 

 to botanists as Opuntia inermis (unarmed), but this name 

 was given by European botanists, who did not know how 

 it behaved in the open. It is often known here as Opuntia 

 vulgaris, but this name is wrong. 



Prickly pears are not everything that is bad. In Sicily, 

 Mexico, and other countries they are used to form humus 

 and arrest soil in sterile situations. They have some horti- 

 cultural value; they can be used as fodder for stock, but 

 they are starvation food at the best. Analysis shows that 

 they contain but little nutritive matter. If fed on enough 

 prickly pear stock will not starve immediately, and they 

 do to tide over a short period of scarcity. It is really a 

 food adjunct, that is to say, if fed with bran, meal, and 

 better fodder plants, it helps to get the best food results 

 out of the scanty better foods with which it is admixed. 

 Its chief value lies in the fact that? it is a convenient way 

 of conserving and of administering water; it is water in 

 capsules. The fruits of one species found in New South 

 Wales (Opuntia ficus-indica) are really useful, and I am 

 endeavouring to select good ones for more extensive culti- 

 vation. These plants occasionally are seen in old-fashioned 

 gardens, and now and then their fruit is sent to market. 

 The outside of the fruit is armed with little irritating 

 spinules, which must be first rubbed off with a cloth. The 

 flesh of some is greenish-white, of others orange. The flesh 

 of the prickly pear fruits which are a nuisance is of a rich 

 carmine colour. 



One is from time to time amused at the remedies pro- 

 posed for the destruction of prickly pear, often the sugges- 

 tion of people who have never been in country devastated 

 by the pest. The problem of tackling large and badly 

 infested areas often requires the expenditure of greater 



