3U8 
DETERMINATIONS OF TEE 
meant ORuntia elatior. It is most interesting to learn (p. 4 j 0) from 
them that according to report the plant had been brought to the Deccan 
bj means of a few seeds that a Sirdar carried in his palanquin coming 
from Delhi. The Delhi Opuntia, as we have seen^ is Opuntia elatior. 
Dalzell and Gibson add that in Gujarat it had only arrived to their 
knowledge at one place, the village of Sidhpur between Ahmedab^d 
and Deesa. 
Here may be given a reference of very considerable interest. 
George Gibberne writing in the Transactions of the Agri- Horticultural 
Society of Indian v, 1839, Appendix^ p. 11, mentions a Cactus as 
common in the Deccan and Khandesh, where it was overrunning 
every uncultivated and barren spot, and had cost some money and 
much trouble in a vain effort to eradicate it. Although he identifies 
it with an Opuvtia on which the cochineal insect would live at the 
Cape, he must refer to 0. elatior 
Stewart relates [Punjab Plants^ 1869, p. 101) that in 184*4i an out- 
break of the cochineal insect in the Punjab destroyed the Opuntia 
plants there. The outbreak was a matter of years and a Dr. A. Fleming 
recorded (in Journ. Agri-Rort. Soc. India, ix, 1857, p. 200) its 
existence at Amritsar in 1848. In the same year it was most prevalent 
at Ludhiana (Dempster in Journ. Agri-Rort. Soc. India, ix, 1857, 
p. 190). Stewart says that by 1852 only a single hedge remained at 
Ludhiana, — the place where Griffith had seen the Opuntia in 1838 ; in 
1851 the cochineal insect was seen by Purdon west of Gujrat. Pre- 
sumedly it persists still, for I saw it myself near Kangra in 1902. 
Stewart uses the name Cactus indicus for the plant, and indicates 
Opuntia monacantJia, 
Baden Powell [Vunjab Products, 1872, p. 194) gives on the author- 
ity of a Mr. Taylor the statement that Opuntia vulgaris, meaning 
0. monacantha, was wiped out in the neighbourhood of Ludhiana, in 
1849-50 and was, when he wrote, only to be found in small patches 
about Baboon, Kartarpur and Kapurthala within that district. 
Opuntia monacantha must have been exceedingly abundant in parts 
of the Punjab. It had become a nuisance to such an extent in the 
Jullundur Doab that Shere Singh, when ruler of Lahore, inflicted 
fines on parties allowing it to extend (F. C. Burnett in Journ. Agri-Rort, 
Soc. India, vii, 1850, p. 32). But one year of the invasion of the 
wild cochineal destroyed it about Jullundur almost to a plant, and 
afforded the Kashmiri dyers a large supply of dye. 
