NEOABBOTTIA, A NEW CACTUS GENUS FROM 
HISPANIOLA 
By N. L. BRITTON and J. N. ROSE 
(With Four Plates) 
Among the earliest cacti described were those obtained by Plumier, 
more than two hundred years ago, mostly from the island of His¬ 
paniola, better known as Santo Domingo. These were characterized 
briefly by him in 1704 and his illustrations of them were published 
in 1755 by Burmann; Lamarck gave most of them binary names in 
1783 under the genus Cactus, and in 1828 De Candolle referred all 
the cereoid forms to the genus Cereus; the other species described 
by Plumier have been referred by various authors to Mammillaria, 
Cephalocereus, Pilocereus, Rhipsalts, Melocactus, Pereskia, Opuntia 
and Nopalea. We have experienced great difficulty in definitely 
identifying the plants from the illustrations of Plumier, since these 
are largely diagrammatic. As the type locality is generally given, 
however, the identification of all of them may eventually be made 
fairly definite. 
In 1920 when Dr. W. L. Abbott and Mr. E. C. Leonard were start¬ 
ing for Haiti, we asked them to collect both living and herbarium 
specimens of all the cacti met with. As good fortune directed, they 
spent a considerable time on the Cul-de-sac, where Plumier collected, 
and so probably obtained several of the species which he described. 
About 20 species of cacti were observed by them there. One of 
these, which has proved to be an undescribed genus, is the subject 
of this article. The Cul-de-sac is the bottom of an old salt lagoon, 
which now has an altitude of 20 feet or more above the sea. It is 
a coral formation and an ideal habitat for many kinds of cacti. Here 
they appear in thickets or literally as forests, forming the dominant 
feature of the landscape. This region lies north and east of Port- 
au-Prince, extending from the bay of Port-au-Prince to Lake 
Saumatre. 
After the return of Dr. Abbott and Mr. Leonard in September 
of the same year with these valuable specimens we wrote, at the 
suggestion of Mr. Leonard, to Mr. H. M. Pilkington, an American 
business man then stationed at Port-au-Prince, asking him to pro- 
Smithsoni an Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 72, No. 9 
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