OPUNTIA. 
313 
Mad., of the size and shape of a hen’s egg, deep rose-colour, 
with the tips of its scales greenish ; rind or flesh a line thick, 
deep rose ; pulp fleshy subpellucid w., rather crisp and juicy 
but mawkish and insipid, full of jet-black ovate subangulai 
small seeds. 
In gardens are also cult. C. flagettiformis (L.) BM. 17 ; C. grandi- 
jlorus (L.) BM. 3381 ; C. speciosissimus Desf., BM. 2306; C. 
serpentinus Lag., BM. 3566; C. peruvianus (L.) DC. (Great 
Torch-thistle, at the Mount and Palheiro), &c. ; Epiphyllum 
phyllanthoides (DC.) BM. 2092 ; E. truncatum (’Link) BM. 
2562, &c. : the two latter forming a link between Cereus and 
Opuntia, as the Torch-thistle Cerei do with the Melon-thistles 
(Echinocactus, Melocactus, &c.), of which also several sp. are 
commonly cult, in Madeira. 
+2. Opuntia Toum. 
Cactus or Prickly Pear. 
fl. 0. Tuna (L.). Prickly Pear. Tabaiba. 
More or less spiny dull gr. subglaucescent erect subarboreous ; 
joints obovate-oblong or oblong-spathulate 2-3 times as long as 
broad ; spines white short feeble weak and inconspicuous, 2-5- 
fascicled towards or at the edges, often solitary or wanting on 
the disk of the joints, from short thick tufts of pale or yellowish 
seta ; fl. gilvous i. e. dull tawny reddish -orange or flame-colour : 
fr. ovoidal or barrel-shaped truncate and widely umbilicate at 
top, pale gr., pulp pale greenish-w. — Haw. Syn. 188; DC. iii. 
472. no. 13 (not C. Opuntia tuna DC. PI. Gr. 1. 138) ; Lowe in 
J. of Bot. i. 40 (excl. syn. Cactus ( Opuntia) Bonplandii Dumb, et 
Kth.). O. monacantha BM. 3911 (not Willd., DC., Pfeiff., &c.). 
Cactus Tuna Linn. Sp. PL (ed. 2) 669, 670 (excl. syn. Sloane 
Jam.). C. Ficus indica Lorn. Fl. Coch. i. 306; WB. (a and /3) 
i. 208 (not Linn.). C. Opuntia Buch 197. no. 368; LIoll’s List 
in J. of Bot. i. 21 (not Linn.). Tuna majcn' spinis validis fia- 
vicantibus, jl. gilvo Dill. Hort. Elth. ii. 396. t. 295. f. 380 (mis- 
printed f. 238 by Linn.). — Shr. or subarborescent, Mad. reg. 1, 
ccc ; PS. reg. 1, 2, r. Seacliffs and in the whole maritime 
region of Mad. on the S. coast up to a height of about 1200 ft. 
everywhere in waste rocky places, especially about Funchal; 
not observed in the north ; in PS. only here and there, to the 
W. of the town, in the Serra de Fora and Serra de Dentro. Fl. 
May- July; fr. July-Sept. — Usually about 6 ft. high, of a dull 
gr., approaching more or less to glaucous, but seldom decidedly 
so ; st. and older branches ashy-brown rudely cylindric, some- 
times as thick as a man’s thigh. Joints hard or firm stiff thick 
flat and even, 9-18 in. long or more, 4-6 in. broad, |-1 in. thick, 
obtusely oblanceolate or spathulate, always more or less elongate 
Q 2 
