May."] HOT-HOUSE O* REPOTTING, ETC. 157 



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

 grow and flower profusely. C. Mdttisoni and C. Scottii 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. speciostssimus 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. 0. Maynardii has very large orange-scarlet 

 flowers, about nine inches in diameter, blooming during the 

 day. G. Fielderii is of a brilliant bluish violet colour, even 

 more of the peculiarly blue tints so greatly admired in spe- 

 ciostssimus. G triangularis has the largest flower of the 

 C'actea: family ; the bloom is of a cream colour, and about one 

 foot in diameter. In its indigenous state it produces a fine 

 fruit called " Strawberry Pear," and is much esteemed in the 

 West Indies as being slightly acid, and, at the same time, 

 sweet, pleasant, and cooling. 



Epiphyllums are those species of the Cactese family which 

 have flat shoots, or leaves without spines; from the edges 

 of those leaves the flowers are produced. They are exten- 

 sively cultivated for their profusion of bloom, and are fre- 

 quentlv grafted on Cereus triangularis and Per'eskia, which 

 greatly promotes their growth, and prevents them from so 

 easily damping off by over-watering. The original species 

 are E. speciosum, pink ; E. phylanthdxdes or Hookerii, white ; 

 E. alaium, white ; E. truncatum, scarlet ; flowers tubular, 

 from two to three inches in diameter. The plant is of a very 

 dwarf growth, and much branched; when in bloom, it is 

 quite a picture, and rendered more beautiful when grafted. 

 There are three varieties of truncatum, differing from it in 

 colour, or rather shades of colour : Altensteinii, rosy red ; 

 violacca, very beautiful violet and white; rubens, bright red. 

 E. Ackcrmania has a magnificent large crimson flower. Be- 

 sides these, there are many superb hybrid varieties, vying 

 with any of the originals. Among them are the following : 

 E. crinitum, pale yellow crimson quite new, of fine habit; 



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

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

 of the kind we ever heard of. 



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