135 
CereuS nyclicalus, Link, or night-beauty, one of the night-flower- 
ing and but slightly fragrant species bloomed with me August 6th, 
and again on the i6th of the same month, when I observed that fructi- 
fication had taken place in the former case. The ovary at this stage 
of development, when I had the whole plant photographed, was of a 
deep green, or, to be more exact, of a greenish-purple tint, with the 
scales of each spiniferous pulvillus tipped with bright pink, sur- 
rounded by white woolly hairs, and the whole capped by a persistent 
calyx. 
The fruiting of this species, which inhabits Mexico, has not yet 
been reported to .have taken place while in cultivation, either in this 
country or Europe. Five years ago I visited nearly all the public 
and private collections of Cactacese between the Atlantic coast and 
Mississippi River in quest of information regarding our night- 
flowering species, and every cultivator, amateur or botanist, met told 
me that this species had not been observed to perfect its berry. The 
same kind of information reached me from different parts of Europe, 
and even the late Dr. Geo. Engelmann disclaimed any knowledge 
of the subject referred to. All the works on Cactaceous plants, and 
I have consulted many, are silent on the same point, and therefore I 
watched with the greatest interest the progress the berry made. 
My plant, a little more than thirty years old, has been in my 
possession for over eleven years, and flowers freely every season, late 
in July or August. The flower averages lo inches in diameter and 12 
in length, opens its petals about 7 o'clock, P.M., and, like its sister 
queen of flowers, Cereiis grandiflorus, closes them again between the 
hours of two or three in the morning. There is something very 
fascinating about these vegetable cats and owls of Prof. Balfour; 
and I never before knew that some of the fruits were as short-lived as 
the flowers of the same. It is well known that some of the fruits of 
Opuntia and Cereus^ when not disturbed, remain on the plants for one 
year. 
My plant, which was out of doors when it blossomed and set its 
fruit, was taken back into the house on the 15th of October, and up 
to the 17th the berry remained of a dark green color. 
Then it gradually and rapidly changed, so that by the iSth it had 
assumed the shade of .a damson plum, light purplish-pink where 
exposed to the sun, and darker on the scales of the spiny cushions. 
October ipth the berry appeared to be of a yellowish-pink 
throughout its extent, and the skin in the sun-light presented a 
beautiful vitreous appearance, the same as in a ripe currant. October 
20th the berry was pretty evenly colored with a light, delicate pink, 
or, in the language of the artist/Mrs. Annie N. Thomas, who made a 
beautiful sketch of it for me, it was of a delicate madder-pink. 
The circumference of the berry around its thickest part was five 
and seven-eighths inches; the length, two and one-quarter inches, 
a-nd diameter of the fleshy part without the spines only one inch and 
three-quarters; in thickness the berrv measured two inches and one- 
quarter one way, and one and five-eighths the other. The berry had 
a slightly flattened shape, like that of an English walnut, the flat side, 
so to speak, being at a right angle with the long diameter of the stem. 
