serrate, the teeth, or serratures very large, obtuse; the centre 
having a thickened rib, which is somewhat woody. From 
the sinus of the upper serratures the flower appears, solitary, _ 
sessile: its base is a long cylindrical, greenish, fleshy 
tube, swollen below, where it forms the germen, and 
clothed with distant scattered small reddish scales, which, 
as well as the outer (eight or ten) greenish segments of the 
perianth are considered as the calyx. Petals forming the 
limb or extremity of the tube, and there spreading, linear- 
lanceolate, pure white, fragrant. Stamens very numerous, 
but inserted in a single series at the mouth of the tube, as 
long as the corolla, nearly erect. Germen inferior, fleshy, 
ovate ; style much longer than the tube, rose colour, termi- 
nated by the yellow spreading stigma of about thirteen 
rays. 
Cultivated in the British gardens, according to Hortus 
Kewensis, since the year 1710 ; yet its flowers are, I believe, © 
rarely produced, and the few figures that do exist of it 
in that state, give no idea of the delicacy and beauty of 
the blossom. D:xtentws’s plate has the flowers with a 
longer tube, indeed, but with the corolla infinitely smaller 
than in our plant: the same may be said of De Canpoxie’s 
representation in the Plantes Grasses. PuuxKener’s figure, 
indifferent as is its execution, gives a better idea of the 
Di of the flower than either of those now men- 
tioned. 
During the present summer (1826), owing probably to 
a long course of uninterruptedly fine and dry weather, we 
have had more species of Cactus flowering in the stoves of 
the Glasgow Botanic Garden than we ever remember to ° 
have seen before: and among them, in the month of July, 
the present species bore three blossoms, each opening 10 
successive evenings, and with amazing quickness, at about 
eight o’clock in the evening, closing between three and — 
four in the morning, and yielding a most agreeable, but 
not very powerful, odour. The same flower never expands: 
a second time. ae 
Fig. 1. Anther. 2. Stigma,—magnified. 
