PRICKLY PEARS NOW WILD IN INDIA. 
307 
Griffith recorded that the hedges about Ludhiflna were iii 183S made 
of an Opuntia (vide Posthumous Papers, Journals, 1S17, p. 313). '’J’his 
Opuntia probably was Opuntia monacantha ; and we .sliall see that 
fifteen years later the cochineal insect had nearly wiped it out. 
Taylor in his Sketch of the Topography and Statistics of Dacca, 
1840, p. 57, writes of Cactus iudicus evidently meaning Opuntia 
monacantha. 
In 1814 Munro in his Hortus Agrensis, p. 19, recorded two Opuntias 
as occurring about Agra. The species which he calls Opuntia cochinillifer 
which thrives very well in Agra: flowering in March probably was 
Opuntia monacantha ; the other which . he calls Opuntia DiUenii was 
not common about Agra, but abundant round the villages near Bhurt- 
pore/^ This second is probably a correct determination. 
Voigt [Hortus Suburhanus Calcuttensis, 1845, p. 63) names Optmtia 
cochinelifera as being in the Honourable Company's Garden. Unlike 
the author just quoted, he, writing before 1841, indicated the true 
plant. He says that Opuntia nigricans, Haw., Opuntia triacantha^ 
DC., Opuntia ruhescens, Salm-Dyck, Opuntia leucantha, Ilort. Berol, 
and Opuntia vulgaris, grew in the garden but did not flower ; that 
Opuntia Roxhurghiana, a new name for KoxburgVs Cactus chinensis, had 
only flowered once during twenty -years ; that Opunt ia (?) spinosissima, 
Haw., and Opuntia brasiliensis, DC., flow'ered, but did not fruit. He 
repeats his error of 183S by recording Opuntia monacantha wrongly 
under the name Opuntia DiUenii ; and he records Opuntia Tuna, 
Opuntia elatior and Opuntia Ficus-indica as flowering, the first with 
a large reddish flower, the second with a large purplish yellow flower 
and the third with a large sulphur flower. 
In 1848 [Journ. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xvii, pt. 1, p. 583), Madden 
recorded the previous prevalence of Cactus indicus in Almora, and its 
destruction by the cochineal insect in 1846. He surely referred to 
Opuntia monacantha. 
Wight gave a good figure of, and a correct name to, Opuntia 
DiUenii m\\\s Illustrations of Indian Botany, ii, (1850), plate 114. 
He said on p. 48 that it was apparently indigenous all ox^er the 
country,^^ but he added that, as it was never found far from habitations, 
it might, in his opinion, be possible that it had been brought from over- 
seas. 
Dalzell and Gibson [Bombay Flora, 1861, Supplement, p. 39) wrote 
that Opuntia’ DiUenii had become common at that time about the 
Deccan villages. The evidence of pre.sent distribution show’s that they 
