January 22, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OF HOKTICULTDRE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



83 



summit of Ben Lawers ; there also occurg, and nowhere else 

 in the -worlJ, the Lichen Verrnoarla Hooker! ; there also, and 

 nowhere else, occur the Moss Gymnostomum CTSpitosum. 

 Draba rupestris and Alsine rubella occur nowhere in Britain 

 except hero and in a place of Sutherlandshire. Oxytropis 

 campestris is found in Britain only on one cliff, of Clova, in 

 the Braemar Mountains ; Trifolium Bocconi only on the 

 Lizard in Cornwall. So in other lands there are hermits of 

 the vegetable world, which prefer being separated from all 

 their relatives. Examples of these are the Sicilian Ho)'ehonnd 

 (Marrubium peregrinum) ; the Blue-bottle Thistle (Carduus 



cyanoides) ; the Crimson Grass Vetch (Lathyrus Nissolia) ; the 

 Elegant St. John's-wort (Hypericum elegans) ; and the Heath- 

 leaved Sun Rose (Heliauthemum Fumana). These and some 

 others, it has been well observed, " stand quite insulated, and 

 seem as if they would disappear, did not Nature, in a manner 

 often inexplicable, provide for their continuance." But the 

 most remarkable we have not yet mentioned — namely, Forstera 

 sedifolia, on the summits of the loftiest mountains of New 

 Zealand ; Melastoma tidorensis, on the crest of Mount Tidor, 

 in the Molucca Islands ; and Disa cornuta, on a few spots near 

 the summit of Table Mountain. Whole natural orders are 



Aloe. 



filecal Cactus. 



Mexican Cacti. 



Melocactus. 



Cactus, or Gauos. 



similarly limited in their places of growth. Sleyen observes 

 that the singular group of the Cactacea; is properly pecuUar to 

 the torrid and subtropical zones of the New World ; two 

 species only have yet been found in East India and China, 

 and there in the interior of the country, at considerable alti- 

 tudes. However, the form of the Cactus has its representa- 

 tive in the Old World ; for on its eastern, as well as its 

 western side, we have Euphorbii'E,'which we should certainly 

 consider Cacti were we without the knowledge of their organs 

 of fructification ; as Euphorbia neriifolia in Southern China, 

 which the Ipomcea QuamocUt twines round and decorates with 

 its scarlet flowers, just as Loranthus aphyllus does the Cerei 

 of Chili. Euphorbia canariensis and Euphorbia balsamifera 

 represent the Cactacefe in the western part of the Old World. 

 It is equally inexplicable why the Old World only should pos- 



sess the true Ericea;, while the Erica ca?rulea, not a true Erica, 

 comes in their place in the New World. 



The mention of the Cactacea; reminds us of another of 

 their peculiarities. No artificial treatment, no other quarter 

 of the globe, can produce them of the same gigantic growth as 

 in the places of their nativity. We see them in their pigmy 

 forms in the Royal Horticultural Society's conservatory, and 

 we have seen them larger in the stoves of England and in the 

 Calcutta Botanic Garden, yet there they are all dwarfs corn- 

 pared with those seen in their Mexican places of birth. " It is 

 to the genus Cereus," says Figuier, " that the gigantic species 

 indigenous to Mexico'and California belong. The stem of this 

 vegetable wonder, flanked by its branches, resembles an im- 

 mense can delabrum, 1.5 yards high. In the engraving* we give 



» Figuier's " Vegetable World," Cassell's editian. 



