PRICKLY PEARS NOW WILD IN INDIA. 
80 & 
In 1875 KurZj in his Trcllminary Jieport on the Forest and other 
vegetation of Fegti, Appendix C, p. x, recorded as Burmese Opiintia 
cochiniJlifera and Optcntia Fillenh : it is iinpossibh^ to be sure hosv 
he used the names ; but as Opuntia cochinelifera and Opantia mona- 
cantha are in Burma now, he probably indicated them. 
In 1878 in the Indian Forester, iii, p. 233, Surgeon-Major J. Sliortt 
wrote of a red-flowered spineless “ Opuntia delenii as common at 
Karanguli in the district of Cliingleput. He evidently indicated 
Opuntia cochinelifera. He adds that this Opuntia was introduced by 
the late Dr. James Anderson to feed the cochineal insect^'’ and that 
*^Dr. Anderson used to supply His Majesty^s ships of war in the Madras 
roads with the green leaves which were used as an antiscorbutic after 
being boiled as an ordinary vegetable As noted above the statement 
that Dr. Anderson introduced Opuntia cochinelifera is quite correct. 
In his list of famine foods, p. 237, he names an Opuntia vulgaris,’^ 
adding the Tamil name for Opuntias Chuppauthumoolloo,^^ whereby 
he assuredly meant Opuntia Billenii. 
Opuntia Billenii is the only species named by C. B. Clarke in 
Hooker'’s Flora of British India, ii., 1879, p. 657, w^here, following Wight 
Boxburgh^s Cactus indicus is put under it. It was a not unnatural thing 
to name no other Opuntia than this as Indian ; for at the time good 
evidence did not exist in books for the determination of any other. 
Gamble in his Manual of Indian Timbers, (1881), p. 208, followed 
C. B. Clarke in naming his one Indian Opuntia as Opuntia Billenii. 
Lisboa in his Usef ul Plants of the Bombay P residency , (1884), pp. 160 
and 199, used the same name, without doubt in reference to Opuntia 
elatior. 
The identifications began to be set right in the Keic Bulletin, 1888, 
p. 170, where it is recorded it appears that there are three species of 
Opuntia more or less common in the neighbourhood of Madras. These 
are Opuntia nigricans, Haw., Opuntia Billenii, Haw., and Opuntia 
monacantha, Haw.^'^ In the Proceedings of the Agri- Horticultural 
Society of Madras for the same year, p. 16, is an extract from a letter 
from Lieutenant-Colonel H. W. R. Cox, wherein is recorded a statement 
that two Opuntias were then growing at Bellary, which are identified as 
Opicntia nigricans and Opuntia Billenii j and again on p. 90 is a note 
saying that he had found Opuntia monacantha at Hospet and Penu- 
chonda in the same part of India. It is obvious that by the name 
Opuntia nigricans the species Opuntia elatior is meant. 
