156 HOT-HOUSE OF REPOTTING, &C. 



solitary, or spineless. C. senllis is the celebrated monkey 

 cactus. C. peruvianus and C. heptagonus grow very 

 erect, and to the height of thirty or forty feet in Peru and 

 Mexico, where they plant them close together as fences, 

 and they are in a few years impenetrable. C.flagelli- 

 formis is a well-known creeping flowering species, hasten 

 angles ; will keep in a good green-house, and produce in 

 May and June a great number of blooms. The petals are 

 of a fine pink and red colour ; the tube of the flower is 

 long, and will stand a few days in perfection, when others 

 come out successively for the space of two months, and 

 during their continuance make a brilliant appearance. C. 

 grandiflbrus is the celebrated " Night-blooming Cereus." 

 The flowers are very large, beautiful and sweet-scented. 

 They begin to open about sun-down, and are fully expand- 

 ed about eleven o'clock. The corolla, or rather calyx, is 

 from seven to ten inches in diameter, the outside of which 

 is a brown, and the inside a fine straw yellow colour ; the 

 petals are of the purest white, with the stamens surround- 

 ing the stile in the centre of the flower, which add to its 

 lustre, and make it appear like a bright star. Its scent is 

 agreeable, and perfumes the air to a considerable distance; 

 bat these beauties are of momentary duration. By sun- 

 rise they fade, and hang down quite decayed, and never 

 open again.* One of these ought to be in every collec- 

 tion, and, if trained up a naked wall, will not occupy much 

 room, and grow and flower profusely. C. mallisoni and C. 

 scoftii are nearly alike, and have beautiful scarlet flowers : 

 it has been gratuitously (to say the least of it) called " The 

 Scarlet Night-blooming Cereus." C. speciosissimus has 

 most beautiful large flowers, about six inches in diameter ; 

 the outside petals are a bright scarlet, those of the inside 

 a fine light purple. One flower lasts a few days, and a 

 large plant will produce every year from ten to fifty 

 flowers, and blooming from May to August. It has flow- 

 ered in some of our collections, and is highly esteemed. 

 C. triangularis has the largest flower of the Cactex family ; 

 the bloom is of a cream colour, and about one foot in dia- 



* They may be preserved if cut off when in perfection, and put 

 in spirits of wine, in a glass vase, made air tight. A plant flow- 

 ered in our collection, in May, 1830, at 12 o'clock at noon the 

 only instance of the kind we ever heard of. 



