the subject of our present figure yields to no plant in the 
size, delicacy, and fragrance of its blossoms: nor are these 
its only peculiarities ; it has been aptly described as 
“ Queen of the dark, whose tender oe fade 
In the gay radiance of the noon-tide hours.” 
“ That flower, supreme in loveliness, and pure 
As the pale Cynthia’s beams, through which unveiled 
It blooms, as if unwilling to endure - 
The gaze, by which such beauties are assailed.” 
In our stoves the season of blossoming is usually the 
month of August. At ten or eleven at night the flowers 
are fully unfolded, and by day-light they are closed never 
more to expand. The closing of the flower may be retarded 
as Mr. Murray has ascertained, even for a whole day by re- 
moving the bud before it is fully open, and putting the cut 
end into wet sand. Our drawing was made from a plant — 
which had three flowers in perfection at thesame hour. The 
species is a native of the West India Islands, and was, ac- 
cording to Hortus Kewensis, cultivated before 1700, in the 
Royal Gardens at Hampton Court. The present and all the 
more beautiful and showy species and varieties of Cactus, 
are no where perhaps more successfully cultivated than at 
the extensive gardens and nursery grounds of Mr. Curtis 
at Glazenwood, Essex; where the curious and grotesque 
forms of the stem form a singular contrast with the splen- 
dour of the blossoms. 
Descr. Stems creeping and extending to a great length, branched, 
cylindrical, with from five to seven angles, the angles bearing numer- 
ous, small tufts of a woolly substance, intermixed with six to eight short 
sete. Copious radicles are thrown out from various parts of the stem, — 
even when the latter does not come in contact with the soil. There is 
no trace of leaves of any kind. The flowers are lateral. The bud is at 
first globose, acute, then clavate, sessile, covered with imbricated scales, 
_ bearing long sete. When fully expanded, the flower is a span across : 
the tube of the calyx long, green, the limb cup-shaped : the former is 
composed of the united, imbricated scales above mentioned: the latter 
is formed of the numerous long, spreading, tawny-orange, upper seg- 
ments of the calyx, forming a sort of ray, and of an inner series of 
calyx-segments or petals, which are oblong, broader upwards, nearl 
erect, and of a pure white colour. Stamens numerous, long, at lagi 
inclined to one side: Filaments white : Anthers linear-oblong, yellow. 
Style as long as the stamens: Stigma of many rays. 
ane 
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