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AND 



GAKDEN GUIDE 



aLOBULAR CACTI. 



{With Coloured Illustration of ScMnopsis Pentlandi.) 

 BX GEOEGE GOEDON. 



IHE beautiful Ecliinopsis Pentlandi represents a class of 

 succulent plants well adapted to the requirements of 

 amateurs who have very little convenience for plant- 

 growing. Some few of the species of the several genera 

 thrive remarkably well in a sunny window, whilst all 

 which do not positively require the temperature of the plant-stove 

 may be grown in a sunny greenhouse, and a rather large collection 

 may be kept in a very small structure. They are exceedingly well 

 adapted to the requirements of amateurs resident in suburban dis- 

 tricts, and who have one of the miniature glass houses which are 

 digaified by the builders with the title of conservatories. "When 

 these houses have a south aspect, it is better by far to furnish them 

 with plants of the character of the one here figured, and kindred 

 subjects, than with soft-wooded plants like geraniums, fuchsias, and 

 petunias, which require constant attention to keep them in health, 

 and free from red spider, green-fly, and other insect peats, which are 

 not slow in establishing themselves upon plants in an unhealthy 

 state, whether brought on by neglect or mismanagement. The 

 globular cacti, and other succulents suitable for associating with 

 them, will not remain long in a healthy condition, if subjected to 

 mismanagement or neglect, but they do not suffer in anything like 

 the same manner as the soft-wooded plants if the amateur forgets to 

 water them when necessary, or to ventilate the house on a bright 

 day. Frequent repetitions of neglect would, of course, tell upon 

 them, but forgetting to open the ventilators once in the course of the 

 summer would not result in roasting them up, as would be the case 

 were the house filled with soft-wooded things. 



To cultivate a collection is easy enough, provided the practices 

 which prevail in many gardens of potting them in a mixture 

 consisting almost exclusively of brick rubbish, and other starving 

 stufi", and keeping them dust dry at the roots during the winter, are 

 not adopted. Although they inhabit the driest parts of the tropics, 

 and are found in a thriving Btate in the most sterile soils, they 



January. 1 



