DETERMINATIONS OF TEE 
Australia contains Opuntia monacantha, Haw., Opimtia strictay 
IT aw., Opuntia brasilieusis, Haw., and apparently Opuntia elatioTy 
which Maiden calls Opuntia Tuna {vide Maiden, A F reliminarp Study 
of the Prickly Fears naturalised in New South JFales, Department of 
Agriculture, Sydney, Misc. Puhl. No. 253, 1898). 
China possesses one Opuntia. Hance called it Opuntia Fitlenii 
(in Journ. Linn. 8oc. Bot., xiii, 1873, p. 104), and rightly, if the black 
thorns on the only specimen which I have seen, have gone black from 
yellow as a post-mortem effect (see p. 299). The. Chinese use it for 
preventing the desecration of their graves by jackals and also for hedges 
(vide Bretschneider, History of European Botanical Discoveries in 
Chinay 1898, p. 770). 
The Sandwich Islands possess two Opuntias : Hildebrand {Flora of 
the Hawaiian Islands, 1888, p. 140) calls one Opuntia and 
describes it as if rightly so named ; the other he thinks may be Opuntia 
tomentosa, Salin-Dyck. 
It will have been noticed that Opuntia monacantha has become the 
most widely distributed of all the Cacti, and that Opuntia decumana and 
Opuntia Tuna are second and third to it. Griffiths (in Bull. No. 140, U. 
S. Dept. Agric., Bureau of Plant Industry, p. 8) points out that 
spineless Opuntia decumana was not necessarily produced in the 
Mediterranean by cultivation, but may have been found by the 
Spaniards in the New World in a state not very inferior to its present 
garden condition in Europe. 
OCCIJEKENCB OF OPUNTIAS IN INDIA. 
Ten years of personal observation enable me to record as follows the 
distribution in India of the species named in the first paragraph : — 
Opiiutia cocliiiielifera : —An uncommon species. Punjab.— »Hoshiar- 
pur. United Provinces : — Mainpuri district, locality not recorded. 
Bengal: — Arrah. Bombay Very sparingly at Dharwar ; possibly 
at Poona. Madras Presumedly at Karanguli in the district of Chingle- 
put in 1878 (Shortt); formerly, if not still, at Courtallam in the 
Tinnevelli district (G. Thomson). Burma Near Taungtha in the 
Myingyan district ; at Myittha ; in some abundance about Kawkareik 
in the Amherst district. 
Opuntia monacantha : —Is very widely distributed, but for the most 
part not found in great abundance. Punjab : — At Jhelum before 1867 
(Aitchison) ; Lahore ; Amritsar ; Kangra ; Jullundur and Ludhiana, 
formerly in abundance ; Patiala ; Ambala ; Israna near Panipat ; Bdmla ; 
Rohtak ; Ilissar ; Simla hills, at K^karhatti, Dharmpur, between Erki 
