_Cactus coccinellifer_ is a native of Mexico, where the principal culture of cochineal is situated, under the torrid zone, where little or no rain falls during half the year (from the beginning of October to about the end of March); as rain destroys the insects, and is injurious to the plants. The dryer the soil is the better they succeed, as their roots are very impatient of water. Although the insects are found naturally upon the plant in those climates, the cultivators, we are informed, always stock their young plantations with insects of their own rearing, which are larger and finer than the wild sort, and give a more brilliant colour. These they breed under sheds in the rainy season; and, when the spring commences, always fresh stock their plantations, scattering a few breeding insects upon each plant, and in a few days the surface appears speckled over with them, each bringing about 300 at a birth. In two months after they begin to collect, by scraping the insects from the bark with the blunt edge of a knife; nor need they any other preparation than immersion for half a minute in boiling water, which is done by dipping them in a kind of sieve, and afterwards drying them in the sun, or by a common fire. Three collections in this manner are generally made in six months; fresh breeding insects being always replaced upon the plants after gathering. Other species of Cacti also breed the insects; but this is always preferred, as a man can gather from the _coccinellifer_ ten pounds a day, while from the _Tuna_, _Opuntia_, and other thorny species, he could not gather two ounces. The plants are generally placed in lines from north to south, that both sides may have the benefit of the sun; and they consider them fit to bear insects at the age of 18 months. Although it is neither a new nor a rare plant, yet as an interesting one, and rarely seen in blossom in England, we presume it will be acceptable to our readers; nor is there any tolerable figure of it which we have seen, unless that of Dillenius in the Hortus Elthamensis, which is not in every body’s hands. Our drawing was made in July 1808, at the Countess de Vandes' collection at Bayswater. [Illustration] PLATE DXXXIV. JUNIPERUS DAURICA. _Daurian Juniper._ CLASS XXII. ORDER XIII. _DIŒCIA MONADELPHIA._ Chives and Pointals on different Plants. Monadelphous. GENERIC CHARACTER. * _Masculi flores._ AMENTUM ovatum. Calyx squamosus. Corolla nulla. Stamina 3. * _Fœminei flores._ CALYX 3-partitus. Petala 3. Bacca 3-sperma, tubulata, tuberculata. Calyx inæqualis. * _Male flowers._ CATKIN egg-shaped. Empalement squamous. Blossom none. Chives 3. * _Female flowers._ EMPALEMENT 3-parted. Petals 3. Shaft 3. Berry 3-seeded, hollowed, and a little swelled. Cup unequal. SPECIFIC CHARACTER. JUNIPERUS foliis oppositis, acutis, imbricatis, decurrentibus, passim patulis, subulatis. _Pallas’s Flora Rossica_, vol. 2. p. 13. tab. 55.