CHAPTER XVIII 



SUCCULENT PLANTS 



THERE is still another class of plants, available for the 

 unheated greenhouse, which presents especial advantages to 

 busy people, and which must not be passed by unnoticed those 

 which the French call les plantes grasses, but which we term 

 Succulents. In the days when Masson was sending home his 

 ample stores of new discoveries from South Africa, and when 

 Prince Salm-Dyck thought it worth while to publish his 

 splendid monograph on the Mesembryanthemum, succulent 

 plants in their numberless quaint forms were in high esteem, 

 and, indeed, well deserved the attention they received. 

 Modern methods ajid impatience of any but quick results 

 have ousted most of these old favourites, but there has been a 

 strong tendency of late years to revive the ancient love for 

 these curious prickly things, amongst which may be found 

 some of extraordinary brilliance and beauty of flower. The 

 exhibits from the historic Chelsea nursery of new hybrid 

 Phyllocacti at the Royal Horticultural Society's Shows of 

 recent years testify to this, yet none of these can exceed 

 the gorgeous splendour of the old Cereus speciosissimus, 

 well-beloved of our forefathers. These " fat " plants, so 

 singularly adapted to the dry and barren regions in which 

 they are mostly found, are and for an analogous reason 

 well suited to any one who has a taste for cultivating 

 plants, but little time personally to devote to them, for 

 they are not impatient, like most others, of a little neglect. 



