334 iSome account of the Echinocactus Eyriesii^ 



Berlin, in which I found the description and a colored figure of 

 a new species of Echinocactus, under the name of E. oxygonus, 

 by jNI. M. Link and Otto." But this species, he adds, which 

 grows in Brazil, and which resembles, in some respects, the 

 Echinocactus Eyriesii, difibrs essentially by its spines, which 

 are three times as long, and brown instead of being black; by the 

 scales or folicles of the calyx, which are brown, or of a rose 

 color, and slightly tinted, instead of being of a purple or green- 

 ish blackness, and furnished abundantly with long slender gray 

 hairs; and, in a w^ord, by their rose colored flowers and their 

 yellow anthers, instead of a white flower and w-oolly white an- 

 thers. The E. oxygonous is, we believe, in some collections 

 in this country, and we extract this account of it, that it may 

 be readily known from the E. Eyriesu. Mr. Sweetser, of C'am- 

 bridgeport, has one which he received from France, under the 

 name of E. Ottonis, which very much resembles the E. Eyriesii. 

 It may be oxygonus. Whether it was introduced into France 

 and England at about the same time, or whether it was introduced 

 to France alone, and from thence found its way to Britain, is of 

 no great import; if the species is generally known under one 

 name, it is sufficient. When in a state of inflorescence it can 

 quickly be told from any of the other species. 



The first plants, we believe, that were ever received in this 

 country, were a few brought out by Mr. Boll, of the firm of 

 Noe & Boll, florists. New York; and from them the present 

 number of plants distiibuted over the country have been pro- 

 cured. Most of the collections of any note in the vicinity of 

 our large cities possess a plant or two, although it has not yet 

 produced flowers in many of them. Plants have flowered 

 with JNIessrs. Noe & Boll, in New York, and perhaps at other 

 places: around Boston it has flowered, Ave believe, at two or 

 three places, for the first time, this season. 



This species has been reported, like the Cereus grandiflo- 

 rus, to expand its flowers only at night. It is properly a night 

 flowering species, but very much unlike the C. grandiflorus, 

 whose flowers open at about 11 o'clock in the evening, and long 

 before the dawn of day are closed, never to unfold again. Not 

 so with the Echinocactus Eyriesri; it remains in full bloom from 

 twenty -four to thirty-six hours. 



From our memoranda we give the following as the progress of 

 our plant from the time its buds first became visible: — Sometime 

 in the latter part of April there appeared, nearly on the top of 

 the stem, two woolly protuberances, which we took to be the 

 buds: they made very slow progress, and had not, until the mid- 

 dle of .Tune, attained more than four lines in length; they were 

 then covered with long blackish-gray hairs, entirely enveloping 

 the buds, which emerged therefrom about the first of July; in 



