226 HOT-HOUSE OF REPOTTING. [MAY. 



red colour ; the tube of the flower is long, and will 

 stand a few days in perfection, when others .come out 

 successively for the space of two months, and during 

 their continuance make a brilliant appearance. C. 

 grandiflorus is the celebrated " Night-blooming Cereus." 

 The flowers are very large, beautiful, and sweet-scent- 

 ed. They begin to open about sun-down, and are 

 fully expanded about eleven o'clock. The corolla, or 

 rather calyx, is from seven to ten inches in diameter, the 

 outside of which is a brown, and the inside a fine straw 

 yellow colour ; the petals are of the purest white, with 

 the stamens surrounding the stile in the centre of the 

 flower, which add to its lustre, and make it appear like 

 a bright star. Its scent is agreeable, and perfumes 

 the air to a considerable distance ; but these beauties 

 are of momentary duration. By sunrise they fade, and 

 hang down quite decayed, and never open again.* One 

 of these ought to be in every collection, and if trained 

 up a naked wall will not occupy much room, and grow 

 and flower profusely. They need very little water. C. 

 speciosissimus has most beautiful large flowers, about six 

 inches diameter ; the outside petals are a bright scar- 

 let, 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 twenty flowers, blooming from May 

 to August. It has flowered in some of our collections, 

 and is highly esteemed. C. trianguldris has the largest 



* They may be preserved if cut off when in perfection, and put in spirits of 

 wine, in a chrystal 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. 



