VEGETABLE VAGARIES. 283 



permit of a brief record of Australian potentialities for the entertainment of distinguished 

 immigrants from other climes. The dry atmosphere, wealth of sunshine, and congenial 

 temperature predominating in the extra-tropical metropolitan centres has proved to be 

 singularly adapted to the acclimatisation, among other exotic plants, of many of the most 

 handsome representatives of the genus Cereus, belonging to the tropical American Cactus 

 tribe. A few excerpts from a considerable number of photographs taken by the writer, 

 reproduced in these pages, will suffice to establish the correctness of this assertion. 

 The Cacti of the genus Cereus are notable for the circumstances that their handsome 

 blossoms are, in the majority of instances, purely white, varied perhaps by tinges of 

 delicate pink or sulphur yellow, and, more especially, that they only condescend 

 to display their floral charms in the night season, closing their petals and hastening 

 to decay with the rising sun. To see these plants, and, above all, to photograph 

 them in their glory, one must therefore unless employing magnesium light, which 

 would be scarcely practical in the case of several of the larger examples here 

 illustrated be an early riser. The witching hour to secure a favourable " sitting " 

 is at daybreak, just before the sun appears above the horizon, when with a 

 prolonged exposure there is sufficient actinic illumination to impress the plate. 



The finest collection of Cerei or other Cacti growing upon Australian territory is 

 undoubtedly that contained in the Adelaide Botanical Gardens. The examples 

 selected for the border illustrations of pages 284 and 285 were derived from this source. 

 The Mexican species Cereus chalybceus, represented on the side of page 285, formed, 

 as may be recognised by its comparison with the rail-fence close beside it, a sheaf 

 of polygonal flower-bearing columns over thirty feet high. A couple of flowers of 

 the same type, taken from a nearer standpoint, are portrayed on the opposite 

 side border. The outer petals in this species were slightly tinged with pink. The 

 two basement border illustrations to the same pages represent another form, Cereus 

 nitens, that was established close beside the tall columnar species, but differed 

 in its growth habits to the extent of forming procumbent straggling masses, 

 whose highest stalks were elevated to no greater heights than from one to two 

 feet above the surface of the ground. The expanded blossoms in this variety are 

 of a translucent snowy whiteness about six inches in diameter, and, as seen in clusters 

 of eight or nine individuals, presented a most fascinating spectacle. 



The most strikingly remarkable example of Cactus blooms here portrayed is 

 undoubtedly that of Cereus yrandijlorus, represented on page 286. The expanded 

 goblet-shaped flowers of this superb species measure as much as nine inches or, with 



