19S1.\ THE CACTI OF T BIN ID AD. 87 



tube deeply set in the wool of the cephalum, the segments iian-ow and 

 few and there are a few short stamens. The fruit, which develops 

 rapidly, is rose-pink, narrowly obovoid, about an inch long, and contains 

 many minute black seeds. 



From Patos, the most eastern known station, this cactus ranges 

 westward along the Vene/.uelan coast into Colombia; it was first 

 collected at La Guayra. The generic n ims Cactios is used for the 

 Turk's-cap, the type of the genus being Cactus Melocactm Linnseus, 

 endemic in Jamaica. 



12. Epiphyllum Hookeri (Lluk&Ottt)) Haworth [Phyllocactm Hookeri 



!Salm-Dyck ; Cerem Ilooleri Link & Otto. J 



Hooker's Night-blooming Cereus grows on trees and cliffs here and 

 there over much of the Trinidad mainland, often attaming a length of 

 twenty feet or more, and freely branching ; its flat, green, narrow, 

 scalloped, leafless and spineless joints are one or two feet long and 

 about three inches wide ; rather fleshy but thin, and often erroneously 

 regarded as leaves ; they bear the flowers singly at areoles on their 

 edges. The flowers are white, funnelform to nearly salverform, with 

 a slender tube about six inches long and a limb about three inches ,- 

 broad, the segments narrow and thin; the tube bears a few distant 

 scales ; the long slender style is pink, the stigma-lobes yellow ; the 

 numerous stamens are white. The fruit of this cactus has not been 

 described and we failed to find any ; our best specimens were obtained 

 on the Arcadia Estate. 



This species occurs also on Tobago and presu:nably in Venezuela. 

 It has been confused with EpiphijUaiii Fhyllanthus, a South American 

 plant, which has a flower with a much longer tube and a smaller limb. 



13. Rhipsalis Cassutha Oajrtuer. 



The String-cactus known in Trinidad as Mistletoe and Old Man's 

 Beard is very different in aspect from any other j^lant of the 

 family", except its immediate relatives, which inhabit Brazil, and is 

 not usually thought of as a cactus. It grows on trees, sometimes on 

 cliffs, hanging often in large masses with a usual length of two or three 

 feet,"= its round, very slender, smooth, unarmed, leafless, string-like 

 stems repeatedly forked, only two or three lines in diameter, the 

 ultimate branches often clustered or wliorled and much shorter than 

 the others. Seedling and young plants have short, bristly stems. 

 The flowers, which are very small and greenish-white, appear at areoles 

 along the sides of the branches, consisting of a few sepals, petals and 

 stamens and one pistil : their structure agrees, however, with that 

 of some other cactus flowers except in size and in the number of p.irts. 

 The fruits are little globose white harries containing black seeds. 



It is frequent on trees in Trinidad in relatively moist districts, 

 especially abundant on Saman trees about Port-of-Spain and elsewhere, 

 and is widely distributed through the West Indies, in northern South 

 America and in Central America. 



* In Tiiuiilarl this> cactu:^ fro'luoiitl}' roachca a krgth of kIk feet and occasionally 

 -even 20 to 30 feet.— ^Eu.) 



