Opuntia monacantha is also present. It serves likewise as a food for the cochineal insect, and in so great a 
measure that the insect kills it. But being a native of the extreme south of Brazil, it was never used in Mexico for 
rearing the insect. It was taken round the world very early as a food plant, in those times when any green vegetable, 
even if unpalatable, was worth carrying on board ship to ward off the dreaded scurvy. Thus it has obtained a wider 
distribution than any other cactus. But in India, when an inferior race of the cochineal was brought in at the 
south, it was destroyed from all but the most remote parts. 
Opuntia elatior is present also. Its abundant thorns fit it for the making of an impenetrable hedge. Such a 
hedge once existed in India, very many miles long, for the purpose of arresting smuggling between the East India 
Company's dominions and certain native States. 
Here also is Opuntia decumanaf the Barbary fig. 
Epiphyllum Hookeri is one of the fiat-stemmed Cacti ; it has beautiful fragrant white flowers, which open at night. 
Cereus hexagonus and some other columnar species are growing satisfactorily. 
At the top of the Rockery Hyphasine indica has been planted, in the hope that by aid of plenty of sun and good 
drainage it may be grown. 
The Palms below the Rockery are all species described by the great Italian naturalist, Odoardo Beccari. 
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