PRICKLY PEARS NOW WILD IN INDTA. 
295 
(Parsons); common about Bilin, Singaing and K v aukse ; Bhaino 
(Dawson); Taunggyi (Scott). 
VERiWCULAR AARES. 
Opuntias do not possess distinctive names in the lanojungcs of India, 
but are collectively known as Nagphani all over Nortliern India. In 
Southern India they are called Naga Kulli, Naga Dali Kulli or Xaga 
Mulli or Chuppattu Mulli — the adjective meaning flat. The Burmese 
class them with other succulents under the name Shazaung, distin- 
guishing Opuyitia monacantha as Shazaung letwa (hand-like) or 
Shazaung kya-sha, Cereus is called in Burma Shazaung-kha or 
Shazaung pyat-that. 
HISTORY OF THEIR lYTROm CTlOY AYR SPREAD. 
No records exist to show when the first Opuntia reached India ; but 
it must have been a considerable time before 1800 a.d. It is narrated 
that sailing boats carried the stems to serve as vegetables at a time 
when anything green, not actually poisonous, although unpleasant to 
eat, was used to prevent scurvy. By reason of that use, Opuntias may 
have found their way into India. But at any rate, when at the end of 
the eighteenth century the East India Company tried energetically to 
establish a cochineal industry, certain species were not wanting in India 
to serve experimentally as food plants for the insect ; for there is evi- 
dence that at the time Bengal contained one species, and there is reason 
to believe that Southern India contained two. Other sp'ecies were then 
introduced into cultivation in India, chiefly by the efforts of Dr. James 
Anderson in Madras and Dr. William Roxburgh in Calcutta. 
James Anderson had commenced to take an interest in cochineal at 
least as early as 17 86 ; and when in 1788 the East India Company gave 
sealed orders to the Captains of some of their ships proceeding to the 
Brazils to procure the insect, if possible, he was allowed to plant a 
garden of Opuntias for its receipt. Anderson^s garden seems, at anv 
rate at first, to have been planted up chiefly with an Opuntia procured 
from His Majesty^s garden at Kew through Sir Joseph Banks, and con- 
sidered there to be the true Nopal on which the Cochineal insect feeds. 
That Opuntia was propagated by Dr. Anderson and his assistant Dr. 
Andrew Berry, until they had a garden of two thousand plants ; and 
then it was distributed to Bengal and also to St. Helena in order 
that a stock of it might be ready against the receipt of the insect (see 
Spry in Trans. Agri-Hort, Soc, India, vi, 1839, Appendix, p. 26). The 
garden also contained an Opuntia received from Mexico via Manila, and 
