50
ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY.
ing the food on which the cochineal insect lives. This very valuable little creature of which nearly 400,000 lbs. weight are annually imported into Great Britain is entirely reared on plants of this order, though up to the present time it is uncertain what species has the preference, two or three being named on which it has been reared in different situations with greater or less success. The Cactus or Opuntia (as DeCandolie prefers designating it; Touna being said to have the preference and not C. cochini/ lifer, which Linnaeus believed to be the true cochineal plant.
The importance attached to the possession of this insect may be estimated from the iact of the East India Company having offered a reward of £2000, Dr. Ure says £1,000, to any one who succeeded in introducing it. Stimulated by so large a reward various attempts have I een made but hitherto without success ; the last was made by the Agricultural Society of Bengal. On that, occasion, the prospect of success was at one time considered so certain, that it actually became a subject of discussion among the Members whether the Society was not entitled to claim the reward offered by Government, but it like all its predecessors failed. I hough it sterns very desirable to have among us a branch of industry that returns a profit to the Mexican cultivator, the importance of it has been greatly diminished of late years by the great iall in the price of the at tide.
At the time the reward was offered, its market price was upwards of £1 - 1 0 the pound, since then it has fallen to H or 10 shillings and the market is fully supplied at these prices, though so low that nothing but extreme cheapness of labour and the perfect facility acquired bj long practice in the management of this branch of industry could enable them to cover the cost of pro- duction, such being the present state of the case, the value of the object sought to be obtained is so greatly reduced that it seems scarcely to merit further attention, except on the chance of the article rising in value under a recurrence of the circumstances which first gave rise to it, which though quite possible does not seem probable.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE 114.
Cactus Dillenii. (Haworth).
1. Flowering branch, natural size.
2. Flower cut vertically, showing the position of the ovary.
3-4. Stamens and pollen.
5. Stigma.
6. Ovary cut transversely.
7. Mature fruit.
8. A seed, natural size.
9. Magnified.
10. Cut transerstly.
11. Cut longitudinally.
LXXVII.—SAXIFRAGEAE
On this order, so little known in tropical countries that two specit-s only have yet been found in Southern India, it seems scarcely necessary to dwell at any length. The only species I have seen, natives of India, are two lowly weeds with nothing either in aspect or properties to recommend them to our attention. On the Himalayan mountains the case is otherwise, for there, many species, appertaining to several genera, have been found. This order though of very limited extent in the warmer regions of the earth, is of some magnitude in temperate ones, and from the varying forms included under it, one of considerable complexity, at least as viewed by DeCandolie whose character we have adopted and which I repeat here in the hope of its aiding in the detection of new Indian forms.
"Sepals usually 5 (rarely 3, 4, 7, or 9), more or less cohering at their base : the limb usually persistent. Petals as many as sepals (except in Donated) inserted on the tube of the calyx, alternate with its lobes, deciduous or persistent, very rarely wanting. Stamens perigynous, either equal to (or rarely fewer than) the petals, and alternate with them; or twice as many as the petals, some alternate, some opposite to them (in onu species, by the abortion of the alternating stamens, there are only 5, and opposite to the petals; or (in Bave> d) indefinite : filaments subulate; anthers ovate, 2-celled, bursting longitudinally or (in iianera) by two pores. Ovarium partly coherent with the tube of the calyx, formed of two (rarely 3 5; carpels, cohering by their iutroflexed sides or margins : styles as many as the carpels, distinct, or more or less combined : stigmas capitate or clavate. Placentae along the inlrofiexed margins of the carpels, either throughout the whole length, or at the base only, or at the apex, usually separating with the carpels, rarely attached to a central axis. Fruit capsular, usually of two (rarely 3-5) carpels or valves, the margins of which are either entirely, or partly iutroflexed, or scarcely
