806 
DI^TERMTNATIONS OF TUB 
The attempt to establish the grana fiiia cochineal having failed, the 
Agri-Horticultural Society set to work to be ready for a second 
importation and prepared a nopal ry well stocked with the Bourbon 
Opuntia [Trans. Agri-IIort. Soc.. India^ vii, 1810, p. 206). 
More than forty years now followed before cochineal was again 
brought into public interest in India : then, in 1888, the Government of 
Madras reintroduced the insect from Algiers. The consignments were 
sent to Coimbatore on living Opuntias : but the insects died after arrival.'" 
The Cactus, it is stated, was grown successfully ; but the records do not 
give it a scientific name. 
There have been no other attempts to establish Cacti in India except 
such as have been made in our Botanic Gardens for ornamental pur- 
poses only ; and those I do not need to touch on. All that need be given 
regarding introductions of these ])lants into the country has now been 
written ; and I pass on to evidence of the spread of them, correcting 
the nomenclature of books as I go. Writers have used the names 
with an almost constant wrongness, now in one way, now in another; 
and every statement in the literature must be corrected in the matter of 
nomenclature before acceptance. 
In 1831, Wight and Arnott [Prodromus Flora; Peninsula Inclim 
Orientalis, p. 363) sho-wed that they had identilied Opuntia Billenii 
correctly as occurring in Southern India : they, however, spoilt the 
recognition by confusing Roxburgh '’s Cactus indicns with it. 
Voigt, as mentioned on page 305 above, wTongly called 0. 
nionacaniha by the name of 0. Billenii [Trans. Jgri~Hort. Soc, India^ 
vi , 1838, Appendix, p. 32) showing that Wight and ArnotCs mistake 
had reached Calcutta. 
In 1839 J. Graham in his Catalogue of the Plants growing in 
p. 83, recorded Opuntia Billenii as commonly used as a 
hedge plant about Cantonments in the Deccan.^' Almost certainly 
he referred to Opuntia elatior. He says that Opuntia cochinelifcra 
was in Bombay gardens. 
It is interesting to observe hoAV the thirties brought the begin- 
ning of the present confusion in the nomenclature, — how Wight and 
Arnott having correctly named the southern Opuntia as 0. Billenii-^ 
[Opuntia monacantha had been swept out by the wild cochineal insect) — 
incorrectly put the northern Opuntia monacantha under it, and how 
Graham came after them putting the western Opuntia elatior under 
the same name. 
