May as its flowering season, but probably it has never blos- 
somed there: M. Dr Canpo te says it flowers in the winter. - 
Our drawing was taken in January last, from a plant in the ~ 
possession of Tuomas Hircuen, Esq. of Norwich, whose 
liberality in sending us an excellent drawing, with specimens 
of the flowers and foliage, we thankfully acknowledge. ‘The 
uncoloured engraving represents, upon a reduced scale, the 
whole plant, which is nearly six feet high, the trunk below 
the leaves being three feet: the coloured part, a portion of 
one of the upper leaves and one of the three branches of the 
‘flowering stem of the natural size ; a separate flower is given 
in its most fully expanded state, by which it may be observed, 
that the generic character of an expanded mouth did not hold 
good, in our specimen at least ; the other figure represents a 
flower on its first opening, forcibly displayed to shew the 
germen, style, and the filaments, which last are only half the . 
length they afterwards acquire. 'They appeared to us to be 
really hypogynous, or attached to the receptacle below the 
germen, and not to the petals; but in this state the inner 
petals embrace the filaments so closely, that they can hardly be 
pulled off without bringing these away with them. The leaves 
produce spines from every part, but sharper, longer, stouter, 
and more curved along the margins, and in a line along the 
middle of both the upper and underside. They abound with 
a yellowish juice, which concretes into a gum-resin, intensely 
bitter, without the nauseous taste of the hepatic aloes. 
Mr, Hircuen informs us, that he has two of these plants, 
nearly of the same size, which he supposes are at least forty 
years old. He kept the one in the house, and exposed the 
other to the open air during the summer months ; the latter 
of these, invigorated by free ventilation, produced its flowers 
in the winter, but the other has not bloomed. Mr. Hirc#Eex 
is probably right in his conjecture, that these plants would 
flower more frequently if they were not kept at all times 
under cover. “We have made the same observation in speak- 
ing of the Cactus triangularis, No. 1884. 
Ator ferox is a native of the Cape of Good-Hope. — Cult- 
vated by Miner in 1759. TING rn 
