312 VIEWS, &C. PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS. 



visnago, belonging to Mexico, has a diameter of upwards of 

 three feet, with a height of more than four feet, and weighs 

 as much as from 700 to 2000 Ibs. ; while the Cactus nanus, 

 which we collected near Sondorillo, in the province of Jaen, 

 is so small and so J oosely rooted in the sand, that it gets 

 between the toes of dogs. The Melocactuses, which are full of 

 juice even in the driest season, as the Ravenala of Madagascar 

 (wood-leaf in the language of the country from rave, raven, a 

 leaf, and ala, the Javanese halas, a wood), are vegetable 

 springs, which the wild horses and mules open by stamping 

 with their hoofs a process in which they frequently injure 

 themselves.* Cactus Opuntia has spread during the last 

 quarter of a century in a remarkable manner through Northern 

 Africa, Syria, Greece, and the whole of Southern Europe; 

 penetrating from the coasts of Africa far into the interior, 

 where it associates with the native plants. 



After being accustomed to see Cactuses only in our hot- 

 houses, we were astonished at the density of the woody fibres 

 in old cactus stems. The Indians are aware that cactus wood 

 is indestructible, and admirably adapted for oars and the 

 thresholds of doors. There is hardly any physiognomical 

 character of exotic vegetation that produces a more singular 

 and ineffaceable impression on the mind of the traveller, than 

 an arid plain densely covered with columnar or candelabra- 

 like stems of cactuses, similar to those near Cumana, New 

 Barcelona, Coro, and in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros. 



(21) p. 226 " Orchideat." 



The almost animal-like form occasionally observed in blos- 

 soms of the Orchideao is most strongly marked in Anguloa 

 grandiflora, celebrated in South America as the Torito; in the 

 Mosquito (our Restrepia antennifera) ; in the Flor del Espiritu 

 Santo (likewise an Anguloa, according to Flora Peruvians 

 Prodrom. p. 118, tab. 26); in the ant-like flower of Chilo- 

 glottis cornuta ;f in the Mexican Bletia speciosa ; and in the 

 whole host of our remarkable European species of Ophrys : O. 

 muscifera, 0. apifera, O. aranifera, 0. arachnites, Sfc. The taste 

 for these splendidly flowering plants has so much increased, 

 that the number of species cultivated by Messrs. Lcddige, 



* See p. 15. 



f Hooker, Flora antarctica, p. 69. 



