316 
38. CACTACEJE. 
And again once in Palma, one of the Canaries, above the village 
of Argnal on the W. coast or La Banda, in the first week in 
June 1858, 1 saw a few y. fl. on a single pi. amongst a profusion 
of others of the normal colour. But these instances are far too 
rare to depreciate at all the diagnostic value of the proper dull 
or. -red hue of the fl., and are rather analogous to the occasional 
occurrence of a white Sparrow, Crow, or Blackbird, or, still 
more in point, of the Mad. white-fld. var. of the Common Broom 
( Sarothamnus scoparius (L.)) supra p. 123; though they may 
serve to put botanists or rather horticulturists on their guard 
against deception by such accidental and merely temporary 
aberrations ; for these variations in this Opuntia do not seem to 
be permanent for even two years in succession. 
In like manner an odd untimely fr. occurs occasionally in 
Mad. here and there in early spring or winter, produced from a 
late autumnal fl., which acquires, before dropping off shrivelled 
and juiceless without attaining proper ripeness though full- 
sized, a purplish-red or madder-colour: whereas the properly 
matured fr. in its season (July-Sept.) is uniformly more or less 
pale apple-gr. or yellowish without the slightest tinge, outside 
or inside, of red or purple. 
This is the only sp. employed in the Canaries for raising 
Cochineal. It had existed however universally in all the islands 
long previous to the introduction of the insect, or at least to its 
becoming an article of commercial importance, — a condition 
indeed of not more than 30 or 40 years’ standing. It is re- 
corded by Webb i. 209, and his account was confirmed to my- 
self upon the spot, that the first introduction of the insect was 
violently opposed by the country-people, especially at Guimar 
in Tenerife, on the ground of its rendering the u Tuncras ” or 
pi. of Opuntia barren, and injuring the crops of their favourite 
fr., called u Fig os” which are even now much used in Fuerte- 
ventura and Lanzarote both fresh and dried. 
Attempts have been made lately very zealously and carefully 
in Mad. to cultivate the Cochineal on this pi. ; but they have all 
proved wholly unsuccessful, mainly from the difficulty of pre- 
serving or obtaining, when lost, in a remote island, fresh “ seed ” 
(young insects) to restock the pi. annually. 
Webb, writing probably from memory after leaving the 
