Likely the first specimens in India, and indeed the world, were collected near Chennai, then known as Madras, in Marmelon, now Mambalam-Saidapet, in the 'Nopalry', the Opuntia gardens, of the Scottish physician and keen gardener James Anderson, who was (quite unsuccessfully) attempting to develop cochineal farming in India at this location. Herbarium specimens taken from these gardens made their way to Germany, where they were used as the type to base the taxon on in 1803.
