NIGHT-BLOWING CEREUS, 



O R, 



CACTUS GRANDIFLORUS 



This plant is called by Linnteus large-flowering Cactus, on account of the comparative largeness 

 of its flower, which, in its native country, Jamaica, is often more than a foot in diameter. It has 

 the appellation also of Night-hlowing Cereus from its opening its beautiful flowers after sun-set 

 Others have styled it the Thorch TMstleJroxr. the armature about its pentangular, articulated, and 

 chmbmg stem, which is leafless, succulent, and exhibits to the observer a figure equally 

 grotesque as terrific, with flowers possessing actually the blazing appearance of a torch. I have 

 sometimes seen m our hot-houses twenty or thirty of these flowers expanded in the same evening 

 emittmg all the while a fine balsamic odour. The caly:v is monophyllous, that is, consisting of onJ 

 piece, which IS deeply cleft into segments, called by botanists lacini^, which are of a bright^ orange 

 and gradually dimmish in size, becoming real squam<s, or scales, before they reach the aermen or 

 seed-vessel, which is villous, or covered with numerous hairs. The petals, or flower-leaves of the 

 corolla, are twenty in number, of a snowy whiteness, and arranged in tiers, are less pointed and 

 concave than the lacmm, having each extremity armed with a hook. These two expansions 

 LiNN^us figuratively calls the nuptial bed. From the germen at the bottom of the cup arises a 

 long tube, named by botanists the style, which terminates in a many-cleft stigma. These 3 p-irts 

 form what is termed ih^ pistillum, or female; around whom, in clusters, are the stamina, or males 

 composed of curvilinear filaments, crowned by their anthers. These take their origin from the 

 calya:, hence this plant comes under the Class Icosandbia and Order Monogynia of Linnaeus- 

 and m the reformed System, Class Many Stamina, Order Filaments insektkd into thk 

 Calyx. The Cereus is thus personified by Dr. Darwin in his Loves of the Plants. 



Refulgent C£REA!...at the dusky hour 



She seeks with pensive step the mountain -bower, 



Bright as the blush of rising morn, and warms 



The dull cold eye of midnight with her charms. 



There to the skies she Ufts her pencil'd brows, 



Opes her fair lips, and breathes her virgin vows; 



Eyes the white zenith; counts the suns that roll 



Their distant fires, and blaze around the pole; 



Or marks where Jove directs his glittering car 



O'er Heaven's blue vault,... Herself a brighter star. 



...There as soft zephyrs sweep with pausing airs 



Thy snowy neck, and part thy shadowy hairs. 



Sweet Maid of Night! to Cynthia's sober beams 



Glows thy warm cheek, thy polish'd bosom gleams. ' <% 



In crowds around thee gaze the admiring swains. 



And guard in silence the enchanted plains; 



Drop the still tear, or breathe the impassion'd sigh. 



And drink inebriate rapture from thine eye. 



