170 On the Cultivation of several of the most beautiful 



Abt. IV. On the Cultivation of several of the most beautiful 

 Species and Varieties of Cactus and Cereus. By a Practical 

 Gardener. 



Although, in these two genera, we cannot boast of splended and 

 shining foliage, or even an elegant habit of growth, we may with 

 justice be allowed to state that there are but few plants, furnished 

 with these particular requisites, which can rival the well known 

 night blooming cereus, (Cereus grandiflorus), in the delicacy and 

 beauty of the flowers. The fragrance is also very agreeable to 

 almost every person, judging from the propensity there is in every 

 one, who visits this nocturnal bloomer, to smell of a flower the 

 moment it makes its appearance. The flowers begin to open at 

 sun set, and are in full bloom from ten o'clock at night, to two or 

 three o'clock in the morning ; and, at sun rise, they gradually close 

 up, to expand no more. Color of the sepals an orange yellow — 

 which contrasts beautifully with the snowy white corolla ; size about 

 six inches in diameter. Indigenous to Jamaica and Vera Cruz. 

 The temperature most desirable to grow this singular plant in per- 

 fection, is from seventy to ninety degrees of heat ; this may be one 

 reason why we so rarely meet with a flourishing specimen. Through 

 our summer months, placed under glass, we do not lack much 

 of the specified warmth ; therefore it is obvious enough that it is 

 the treatment through the winter that gives the plant such an arid 

 appearance. During this season the plant is generally placed in 

 the hottest part of the green-house or stove, and the roots sub- 

 jected to all the variations of an artificial temperature, with scarce- 

 ly a spoonful of water, once a week, to feed it ; the earth in the 

 pot being completely baked and dried up ; the whole plant sickens 

 and not unfrequently perishes, or dies, at the surface of the pot ; 

 the top becomes a parasite, subsisting altogether on the atmos- 

 phere. This is called damping off"; moisture being universally 

 supposed to be the death of the plant, whereas, in fact, it might 

 be termed, and very appropriately, drying off". That water is ne- 

 cessary for the well doing of every plant that strikes its roots deep 

 in the soil or sand, (some of the species having been found grow- 

 ing in Mexico on a sand bed), no person will attempt to deny. A 

 safe rule to go by, is, to endeavor to steer between the two ex- 

 tremes ; and, in order to take the intermediate path, I shall, in this 

 place, recommend a compost, that is composed of one half good 

 fresh earth, half leaf soil, and a portion of sand, well mixed together, 

 and the other half, pieces of broken flower pots, or, if those can- 

 not be had, choose a soft burnt brick and pound it into quite small 

 pieces, but not to dust ; when this is done, mix it with the soil 

 thoroughly ; here you will have a compost one half broken pots or 



