440 
EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH. 
elongatis complanatis curvatis; centralibus 4, summo elongato complanato pergamen- 
taceo flexuoso albo, 3 reliquis paullo brevioribus obscuris omnibus seu solum infimo 
hamatis; floribus minoribus; ovario squamis sepaloideis 5 oblongis munito; sepalis 
tubi linearibus margine membranaceis integris mucronulatis, petalis angustis oblongis; 
stigmatibus 6-7 brevibus in capitulum globosum congestis; bacca ovata parce squa- 
mata floris rudimentis persistentibus coronata. 
The species was originally discovered on the Little Colorado by Dr. Bigelow, and 
was found afterward on the same stream by Dr. Newberry; the variety here described 
was met with more than 5 degrees farther north, in Desert Valley, west of Camp 
Floyd; remains of fruit, with the withered flowers attached, and some seeds, were 
found concealed between the spines from which the description has been drawn.* 
Globose heads 3 inches in diameter, radial spines inches long, central ones 1J-2 
inches in length; flowers, if I may judge from the withered remains, about 1 inch 
loug; ovary small, bearing about 5 membranaceous scales, the lower triangular, 
the upper oblong-linear, almost entire, and never cordate or auriculate at base, as they 
appear in most of the allied species; sepals of tube also narrow, linear, or oblong-lin¬ 
ear, 2-5 or 6 lines long, J-l line wide, stigmas about J line long. Fruit apparently 
an oval berry, | inch long; seed just as it is described and figured in Whipple’s Cac- 
tacese ; the tubercules on the seed-coat are extremely minute and distant from one an¬ 
other, each forming a central protuberance on the otherwise flat surface of an angular 
cell of two or three times the diameter of the tubercule itself; embryo curved about 
| around a rather copious albumen. 
Cereus viridiflorus, Engelm. in Wisliz. Mem . note 8, sub Eehinoeereo; Cact 
Mex. Bound, t. 36 ; Synops. Gact. p. 22. 
This is evidently the northernmost Cereus , extending to the Upper Platte; it is 
abundant in Colorado. These northern specimens are 1-3 inches high, 13-ribbed, and 
show the greatest variability in the color of the radial spines ; in some bunches, they 
are all red, in others white, in others again the colors are distributed without much 
regularity; sometimes the upper and lower spines are white and the lateral ones red, 
or a few or even a single one above and below are red and all the rest white; or the 
lower ones are red and the upper ones white, and all these variations sometimes occur 
on the same specimen. I mention this to show how little reliance can be placed on 
the colors or the distribution of the colors of the spines. Central spines wanting or 1 
or 2 projecting horizontally, straight or curved upward, white or tipped with purple 
or all purple, 6-9 lines in length. 
Cereus Engelmanni, Parry in Sillim. Journ. n. ser. 14, p. 338 ; Engelm. Cact. 
Bound , p. 36, t. 57; Synops. Cact. p. 27. 
Deserts west of the Salt Lake, without flower or fruit. Specimen entirely simi¬ 
lar to the one figured in the Cactacese of the Boundary. The species seems to extend 
from the Salt Lake region soiithwestwardly to Arizona and the Mohave country. 
* The botanist of Dr. Hayden’s Expedition of 1875, Mr. Brandegee, found it abundantly in Southwestern Colo_ 
rado (January, 1876), 
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