1523 



MAMMILLARIA* tenuis, 

 Taper Mammillaria. 



ICOSANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 



Nat. ord. Cacte;e Be Cand. § Opuntiacese. (Introduction to the 

 natural system, p. 54.) 



MAMMILLARIA.— Suprd, vol. \6.fol. 1329. 



M. tenuis ; pumila, cylindracea, prolifera, axillis nudis, spinis 20 radiatis 



sequalibus patentissimis intricatis. 

 M. tenuis. De Cand. in Uteris. 



Caulis cylindraceus, valde~ proliferus, propaginibus sp/uericis. Tubercula 

 brevia, ovata, axillis nudis. Spinse e centro lanato radiatce y 20-21 , jtmiores 

 purpurascentes, adultce flava, omnes cequales, patentissimce. Flores ochro- 

 leuci, minuti. 



Gentle reader, hast thou never seen in a display of fire- 

 works a crowd of wheels all in motion at once, and crossing 

 and intersecting each other in every direction ? and canst 

 thou fancy those wheels arrested in their motion by some 

 magic power, their rays retained, but their fires extin- 

 guished and their brightness gone; just as the glow-worm's 

 light fades before the glare of day, and leaves nothing but 

 a brown and lustreless shell, in place of the fiery mask 

 which he wore in darkness? Then mayest thou conceive 

 the curious beauty of the little herb now before thee ; a 

 plant so unlike all others, that we would fain believe it the 

 reanimated spirit of a race that flourished in former ages 

 with those hideous monsters whose bones alone remain to 

 tell the history of their existence, in the quarries of our 

 sandstone, slate, and clay. With nothing living has it any 

 resemblance, except its own immediate kin; and even among 

 those it exceeds in curious intricacy of structure all that 

 we know elsewhere. 



* Seefol. 1329. 



