250 
FICOIDE/E. 
Opuntia. 
' 
Throughout the Californian desert from the mountains to the Colorado, and into Arizona. 
Bushes 4 to 6 feet high ; trunk solid, sometimes 2 inches in diameter*; joints only | or J inch 
thick; spines an inch or two long ; flowers 6 to 9 lines wide ; fruit 9 lirffes long; seeds 2 lines 
wide. 
11. O. echinocarpa, Engelm. & Big. A low much-branched and spreading 
shrub: joints ovate-clavate, densely covered with numerous spines (3 or 4 stouter, 
8 to 16 weaker ones in a bunch), which are loosely coated with a whitish glistening 
sheath : flowers pale greenish yellow, about 1J inches wide : fruit depressed, deeply 
umbilicate, very spiny : seeds few (2 lines wide), with a broad flat rhaphe. —- Cact. 
1. c. 51, t.. 18, fig. 5 - 10 ; Bot. Ives Colorado Exp. 14. 
Common in the desert from the mountains to the Colorado Kiver, and into Arizona. Usually 
only 1 to 1| feet high, very showy from its conspicuous shining spines, an inch or two long. 
12. O. serpentina, Engelm. A large straggling densely branched shrub: joints 
elongated, covered with oblong prominent tubercles, which hear bunches of numer¬ 
ous short spines, very soon losing their inconspicuous sheaths : flowers clustered, 
greenish yellow, reddish externally: petals spatulate, obtuse: stigmas 8, whitish: 
fruit broadly oval, deeply umbilicate : seeds thick, irregular, with a narrow rhaphe. 
— Am. Jour. Sci. 2 ser. xiv. 338. 
Common near the coast, at San Diego, Parry, Hitchcock. Bushes 3 to 5 feet high ; spines 
8 to 15 in a bunch, 3 to 6 lines long ; flowers 1J inches wide ; fruit about 9 lines long. 
++ Fruit green , fleshy , and without spines: flowers red. 
13. O. prolifer a, Engelm. An arborescent shrub with elongated joints, covered 
with oblong obtuse tubercles, which hear 3 to 6 or 8 spines, obscurely sheathed : 
flowers densely clustered at the ends of the branches, small, brick-red : fruit clavate, 
obovate, or subglobose, strongly tubercled, deeply umbilicate, almost always sterile 
and often proliferous : seeds large, regular, with a broad prominent rhaphe. —Am. 
Jour. Sci. 1. c. 
San Diego (Parry, Schott, Agassiz), up the coast to San Buenaventura, and southward 
into the Peninsula, Gabb. Larger than the last, with stouter more strongly tubercled joints, 
and fewer and shorter spines, and easily distinguished from it in flower and fruit : longest spines 
1 to 1| inches long ; flowers 1| inches wide ; seeds 3 lines in diameter, with a more prominent 
and broader rhaphe than its allies. 
Several other Opuntice, belonging to this last section, all with red flowers and fleshy fruit, are 
found in Western Arizona and may also be expected on the western side of the Colorado. They 
are all ereet much-branched bushes, covered with shining sheathed spines. The more northern 
0. Bigelovii, Engelm., has short tubercles. 
0. fulgens, Engelm. & Big., and 0. mamillata, Schott, both south of the Gila (perhaps 
forms of a single species), have very prominent tubercles, and small curiously irregular seeds 
1| to 2 lines long, with, a linear rhaphe. 
0. leptocaulis, DC., including 0. frutescens, Engelm., 0. naginata, Engelm., and several 
Other synonyms, is the slenderest of all Opuntice, with long branches scarcely thicker than a 
goose-quill, small yellow flowers, and a small pulpy scarlet fruit ; common throughout all 
Northern Mexico, ranging into Texas, New Mexico, and Western Arizona, and may also be 
found west of the Colorado Kiver. 
Order XLIV. FICOIDEJE. 
A miscellaneous group, chiefly of fleshy ;or succulent plants, with mostly opposite 
| . leaves and no stipules; differing from Garyopliyllacece and Portidacaceee by having 
distinct partitions to the ovary and capsule (which are therefore 2 - many-celled); 
j the petals and stamens sometimes numerous in the manner of Cactaceoe (hut the 
former wanting in most of the genera); agreeing with all these orders in the campy- 
. lotropous or amphitropous seeds; the slender embryo curved partly or completely 
round a mealy albumen. . 
I Missouri Botanical Garden 
George Engelmann Papers 
I 
BOTANICAL 
cm copyright reserved garden 
