358 Flowering Seedling Cacti quickly. 



several flowers, some of which had ah'eady begun to fade ; 

 C. speciosa had only one flower. In order to produce fructi- 

 fication, I took the pollen from C. speciosa, with which I im- 

 pregnated the flower of C. alata, and from C. alata I conveyed 

 the pollen to C. speciosa. 



I observed on the 6th day that both impregnations had pro- 

 duced good fruit blossoms, from which I finally obtained ripe 

 seeds. In the middle of February, 1836, the fruit began to 

 ripen, and by the middle May it was completely ripe. On the 

 20th of May I took the fruit, and separated the seed from the 

 pulp. I then filled two small pots, 3 in. broad and 3 in. deep, 

 with pure maiden earth, to which I added one part of sand, 

 having previously put in potsherds to the depth of 1 in., so 

 as to obtain an exit for superfluous water. I then filled the 

 pot full of mould, pressed it down pretty firm, and then strewed 

 the seeds, after which I covered them with a thin layer of soil. 

 The pots were now placed in a hotbed, but in a moderate tem- 

 perature; and they were always covered with a glass, in order that 

 they might not dry up too suddenly, or be injured by the mois- 

 ture dropping from the sashes of the roof, which is extremely 

 injurious to young succulent plants. It must be particularly 

 observed, that the pots are not allowed to get dry when germi- 

 nation takes place ; and, in order to prevent this, I covered them 

 every evening with wet moss, which I took off again in the 

 morning, by which means not only a moderate degree of tem- 

 perature and moisture was maintained, but the seed remained 

 uninjured. With this treatment all the seed, even to a single 

 grain, germinated in eight days. I kept the plants in the pots 

 till they were a quarter of an inch high, and therefore fit to be 

 transplanted, for which purpose I prepared the following mix- 

 ture of soils : two parts of leaf-mould, one part of loam, one 

 part of grafting clay, and one part of earthy mortar that had 

 fallen from old walls. After these are properly mixed and put 

 through a sieve to bring them to a proper fineness, they are put 

 into pots 4- in. wide, and filled about 4^ in. high, previously pro- 

 vided with one underlayer of small potsherds. From four to six 

 plants are then put in, and placed in a hotbed to obtain a higher 

 degree of temperature. When the plants begin to grow, they 

 must be kept uniformly moist. I kept mine so much so that tlie 

 mould became covered with green moss. The plants continued 

 healthy and beautiful, and fiom July to October they attained 

 from 6 to 8 inches in height, and 1 in. in circumference. I put 

 some other transplanted plants in a hotbed, and kept them 

 drier. When these had remained the same length of time in 

 the hotbed as the other plants, they were found to be very small, 

 scarcely 2 in, high, and 5 in. in circumference; which fully con- 

 vinced me that young plants of the Cacti raised from seed re- 



