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CACTUS NOTES. 



Epiphyllums. 



HE next best known are the " Epiphyllums," or Crab or Lob- 

 ster Cacti, with flat stems notched as one leaf or stem growing 

 out from another ; the flowers are formed at the joints. These 

 are rapid-growing satisfactory plants, and their cultivation, soil, 

 watering, etc., similar to the " Phyllocactus," 



As their long slender branches are of a drooping habit they 

 are often grafted on the " Pereskia," or Barbadoes gooseberry 

 (a woody shrub though a cactus and the only species that has 

 true leaves) or on some of the varieties of " Cereus." When 

 grafted on stems a foot high they make beautiful umbrella-like plants, and when 

 covered with blossoms in winter, as they generally are, there are few plants to 

 compare with them. Besides making handsomer plants grafting prevents damp- 

 ing off" at the neck, a danger with young plants if injudiciously watered. The 

 original plants of this class were only two, with scarlet or crimson flowers, but 

 they have been so successfully hybridized that there are now many different 

 colors, and even the shape of the flowers has been changed. The original form 

 was two or more tubes growing out of each other, but there are now flowers like 

 a " Cereus," or " Phyllocactus." Every one should have a Crab cactus. 



Cereus. 



The " Cereus " next claim attention, a large and beautiful class of about 

 200 varieties with strongly dissimilar forms from " Cereus giganteus," the giant 

 of Mexico, a straight column sixty feet high, to the creeping rat-tail " Flagelli- 

 formus," common in dwellings. To attempt to give a description of the numer- 

 ous varieties would be more lengthy than profitable, as these notes are only by 

 an amateur for beginners in cactus culture. 



A large number are of a semi-climbing habit requiring support. Of these 

 the best known are "grandiflorus," "coccineus," " Macdonaldsii," " Nycli- 

 calus," and others, and a description of the first named may serve for this class. 

 "Cereus grandiflorus," "The night-blooming Cereus," "The grandest flower 

 that blooms," are the names variously applied to this plant. The stems are 

 almost cyhndrical, nearly an inch in diameter, with four to seven slight ridges 

 or angles, which bear numerous small tufts of wool and short spines. The 

 flowers appear on the sides of the stems, principally the younger shorter ones. 

 The first sign is a little wooly tuft, and you will be unable to know for a few days 

 whether it will be a flower or a branch, but keep in the sun, and if a flower the 

 stem will increase to about six inches in length; watch'then for its opening about 



^213) 



