CACTUS TRUNCATA-COMMON CACTUS, 



CLASS, ICOSANDRFA J ORDER, MONOGYNIA. 

 NATURAL ORDEP., CACTACE.E. 



GEN. CHAR. Calyx, superior, cut in many parts, piled over each 

 other. Petals, numerous, in many series, outer ones smaller. Stig- 

 ma, many cleft. Fruit, a berry, one-celled, many seeded, umbilicate. 

 SPEC. CHAR. Branched. Joints, short, oblong, truncated. 



The greater number of these plants, observes Lindley, grow in 

 hot, dry and rocky places, where they are exposed for many months 

 of the year to the fiercest beams of a tropical sun, without a pos- 

 sibility of obtaining from the parched and hardened soil, more than 

 the most scanty supply of necessary food. Under such circum- 

 stances plants of an ordinary structure would perish ; but Cactuses 

 have a special power of resisting heat and drought, and like the 

 camel, they carry with them a supply of water for many, not days, 

 but months. When the soil around is saturated with moisture by 

 the rains, they grow fast, and all the little cavities in their tissue, of 

 which there are countless millions, are filled with liquid nourishment, 

 and they may be literally said to gorge themselves with nourishment. 

 Then when the rains cease, and the air dries up, and the Spirit of the 

 desert reassumes his withering dominion over their climate, Cactuses 

 are in the most robust health, and their cells are filled with provision 

 against scarcity. But now, were they only protected by a thin cuti- 

 cle, the evaporable matter would be soon exhaled, and an early death 



